


Pride and Joy

by AverageMarvelBitch



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Characters might be a little OOC because I'm new to this and I'm not really good at it lol, F/M, I think but not too much I think I don't even know, M/M, and some violence, angsty, mentions of child abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2019-10-09 03:54:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17399552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AverageMarvelBitch/pseuds/AverageMarvelBitch
Summary: After losing his parents, Tony Stark is in a downward spiral. He drinks, he parties, and then he gets a woman pregnant and everything changes. But life never does give Tony a chance to be happy and his daughter dies before he even has the chance to hold her. Or so he thinks...AU where Tony Stark has a daughter, but then shit happens.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first attempt at writing something Marvel AND writing something in English. Don't be too harsh when reading it, pretty please, and thank you.
> 
> Also, the song Tony plays is this one, in case anybody is interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E6b3swbnWg

 

**December 19, 1991.**

Eighty six hours. Tony hadn’t slept in eighty six hours. He lay there on the king-size bed, looking at the ceiling intently, covered in sweat. Every time he closed his eyes, he would see the car slamming into the tree. He would see his father’s eyes, open and unseeing, blood dripping from his head, skull smashed from colliding into the steering wheel. He would see his mother, always so pristine and proper, with her clothes covered in blood, her head bent over, eyes closed, as if she was silently praying. Obie had warned him that seeing the pictures from the scene wasn’t a good idea, but he needed to see them to actually believe it. Howard had been, as far as Tony could remember, a horrible father and an arrogant piece of shit, but he couldn’t deny he had also been a force of nature. Sometimes, it felt like Howard was this invincible, immortal god who played by no rules except for his own. He survived a war, he built the biggest weapon’s company in the world, he succeeded even when all odds were against him (or, at least, that’s what he told Tony every time they had a fight). It was hard to imagine a simple car crash could ever kill the great Howard Stark. But it did. His father and his beautiful, loving mother were gone. And Tony was alone.

Sometimes, lying there on the bed, alone, he swore he could hear his mother’s voice, sweet and calm, singing one of those old Italian lullabies from when he was just a boy. Other times, he could smell her perfume in the air. He sat abruptly on the bed, violently wiping the tears that threatened to fall from his eyes. He was a Stark. And Stark men were made of iron. If Howard was here, he would say men don’t cry, they take action instead. His mother, though, would reassure him that tears are more than acceptable when the pain is too much to bear. But nobody was here to tell him anything. And so Tony got up and left his bedroom.

The mansion had always felt too big, too empty. It had never truly felt like home. But now, it felt like a coffin, its walls confining him, engulfing him, making it harder to breathe. He went down to the kitchen and opened the fridge, taking a bottle of water. Looking around, he thought about Jarvis, whom he had lost two years ago. _Everyone leaves_ , he thought, closing his eyes, _everyone always leaves._ He looked at the clock and sighed. It was 3 am and still sleep wouldn’t come. He had never felt so tired before in his life. He ditched the water and walked straight to Howard’s office. He needed sleep and maybe a bottle of whiskey would help. It wasn’t like Howard was ever going to drink it anyway.

**December 25, 1991.**

Christmas had once been a very big affair in his house. Howard and Maria would throw a big, fancy party every year. They’d invite every one of their friends, Jarvis and Anna would cook a formidable meal and there’d be music, and alcohol and talks about the companies, and the vacations spent at Switzerland skiing, and the renovating of the already perfectly good mansions. Tony would stand there, in his best suit, a forced smile on his lips, while his father talked and talked about his latest accomplishments. _Did you know Tony got into MIT? At fifteen, if you’d believe it. Oh, yes, yes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?_ Howard always did that. Complimenting Tony in front of others, but, behind closed doors, making sure he knew he was nothing special, that he could do better. It was annoying, but Tony played the part. He knew the importance of keeping appearances in this world, had been taught that at a very young age. And so he had gone to every party, every single year until he finally left for college and never looked back, spending Christmas at Rhodey’s house instead, eating homemade cookies and drinking hot chocolate with marshmallows.

_This is my first Christmas alone_ , he thought and then snorted loudly, once more filling his glass with whiskey. It was ridiculous to think this was his first time spending Christmas alone. He had always been alone. Even when the house was full and the music played through the night, he still felt utterly alone. This was no different, really. He looked at the piano in the middle of the room and thought about his mother, her long, skilled fingers gently pressing the keys, her eyes closed, completely focused on the music, a small smile on her lips. _If I had known that was the last time I’d hear you play, I’d have paid more attention._

He walked to the piano, sitting at the bench. He caressed the keys and took a deep breath, then closed his eyes and started playing. She’d always ask him to play on Christmas. _You play so beautifully, Anthony._ She’d say every time, with a smile that could warm the room. And Tony could never deny her. He felt the tears coming down his cheeks as he played her favorite piece, and then suddenly it was too much and he slammed his hands on the keys, the loud sound echoing through the big empty house. The tears came freely now as Tony sobbed, head on his hands, unable to calm himself down.

The next morning, Obie came to visit. He found Tony in the music room, bottles and more bottles all around him, and the piano smashed to pieces.

**May 29, 1992.**

Everything was loud. The music, the guests, everything. His head felt like it was going to explode, but it didn’t matter. He took another generous sip from the bottle in his hand and laughed at something his friend, Tiberius, said. He was lucky to have met Ty, especially now with Rhodey on the other side of the world, fighting wars that couldn’t be won. Tony wished he was here, and even offered Rhodey to call some higher ups and get him a free pass to come and celebrate his birthday, but Rhodey denied, saying he didn’t want to piss off anyone just yet.

And so Tony danced, and drank, and ended up having sex with a girl whose name he didn’t know in the men’s bathroom. And the next morning he woke up as he usually did, with a horrible hangover, in a bed that wasn’t his own, with a man and a woman he didn’t remember going home with.

**September 15, 1992.**

After a few too many scandals and a lot of meetings and deadlines forgotten, Obie insisted that Tony needed a personal assistance, personally interviewing and selecting five candidates for the future CEO of Stark Industries to choose. One of them was Pepper Potts. The minute Tony entered the room for his interview with her, she severely reprimanded him on his lateness and told him, without hesitation, that she was the best of the best and she would not, under any circumstances, sleep with him. _I’m here to do a job, Mr. Stark,_ she said, shoulders back, head high and back straight, _and that job is to make sure you at least resemble a functioning human being so if we’re going to work together, this will be the last time you arrive late at a previously scheduled meeting, do we understand one another?_ Tony, of course, hired her on the spot.

It was Pepper’s second month working for Tony and she had only threatened to murder him four times ( _I make your schedule, Mr. Stark, I can make it look like an accident, don’t think I can’t)_ which, all in all, was as good as it could be. Thanks to her efficiency, Tony missed less meetings and deadlines (because not even the great Pepper Potts could turn Tony Stark into a _complete_ functioning human) and became more productive and less erratic. He was getting better, feeling more like himself with each passing day, and starting to believe that life could, in fact, be normal again. And that was, of course, when everything came crushing down.

It was a clouded morning and Tony was, as usual, tinkering away in his workshop. He’d spent the night trying to solve a particularly difficult problem with a missile he’d recently designed for SI. The lack of sleep and food (he didn’t even remember the last time he’d eaten something) were making him tired and irritated, which did not bode well for poor DUM-E, who was in time out, standing in a corner with a cone of shame on his head, having been sent there after he tried to feed Tony a smoothie full of motor oil and bananas.

Tony was so focused on the task at hand that he didn’t even hear the door to the workshop opening, or the clicking sound of Pepper’s heels on the cold floor. She called him three times, without any answer, before she reached him and snapped her fingers in front of his face. He slowly blinked twice, looking very annoyed with the interruption.

“I thought we were at lockdown over here. JARVIS?” he asked, turning on his chair.

“I’m afraid Miss Potts has the code that overrides the lockdown protocol, sir”, His AI responded with a hint of humor in his voice.

“I have someone here who wants to talk to you…”

“Busy, Pepper, I’m busy…”

“She says you two slept together and now she’s pregnant.” Pepper continued, completely ignoring Tony. “She’s been calling me for weeks, but this time she threatened to call the press and tell them you’re refusing to…”

“…they always say that, you know that, I don’t understand why…”

“…acknowledge your child and this could become a PR nightmare…”

“…you keep insisting on bothering me when I’m clearly busing changing the world over here…”

“…so please, just take five minutes, go upstairs and fix this because I’m not your babysitter, Mr. Stark…”

“…and it’s like you don’t even listen to me, really, Miss Potts…”

“TONY!” Pepper said firmly, giving Tony a look that means business. “Upstairs. Right now.”

Without much of a choice, but with a very exaggerated roll of his eyes, Tony got up, throwing his red screwdriver on the table and walking towards the stairs, Pepper right behind him.

The woman was sitting on the couch, throwing nervous looks at Happy, who kept glaring at her from a distance. Tony could not for the life in him remember her, which was a good sign. _Another crazy woman after money_ , he thought, walking into the room. The woman got up as soon as she saw him, and Tony asked Pepper and Happy for some privacy.

“I’ll be right in the next room, boss”, said Happy, giving the woman one last glare before Pepper, rolling her eyes, grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room.

Tony sat down beside the woman. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she asked, an incredulous look on her face.

“Don’t take it personally. I don’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning”.

“You didn’t have any breakfast, sir”, JARVIS intervened, “The last time you ate something other than blueberries was 16 hours ago”.

Tony rolled his eyes fondly at his AI’s tone of disapproval. “So, who are you again?”

The woman looked incredibly offended when she answered. “I’m Diana. We met last month at the Firefighter’s benefit Stark Industries threw. You were drunk and we had sex in the balcony”, she explained.

THAT he remembered. Suddenly, Tony’s mind was filled with moans and the very distinctive image of licking a bird tattoo near a perky tanned ass. “Right. Diana. And you’re pregnant now, right? And what, I’m just supposed to believe that?”

Diana, now looking thoroughly pissed, opened her purse and took a piece of paper, almost shoving it in Tony’s face. “Here’s the blood test. I’ll be happy to do another one with a doctor you choose. AND a paternity test, of course”.

Tony took the piece of paper, reading the words, but not fully comprehending them. _This is new_ , he thought while Diana sat there, looking awfully smug. The women who claimed they’re pregnant with his child usually didn’t bring a blood test. And, when told they would have to go through a paternity test, would normally cry and accuse Tony of being a terrible, horrible man for not believing them. So, naturally, the fact that Diana was apparently ready to take any test Tony saw fit slightly worried him.

“What are you doing right now? My assistant can get you an appointment with a doctor so you can take the necessary tests”.

“Right now? Perfect. The sooner we confirm this, the better”, Diana answered, getting up. Tony got up as well and Pepper appeared at the door, looking professional as always.

“JARVIS said you needed me”.

“Yes”, he answered, running his hand through his hair, “see if you can make an appointment for Diana here, so we can check the facts”.

“Already done it, Mr. Stark. Happy is waiting outside to take her to the clinic. I’ll be accompanying her”.

Tony had never been more grateful for Pepper’s efficiency. “Thank you, miss Potts”.

Diana nodded her head towards Tony, saying a quiet goodbye and leaving the room with Pepper. As soon as they were off sight, Tony let himself fall on the couch, head on his hands, and a worried expression on his face. All he could do now was wait.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony has a decision to make that will change his life forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't pay too much attention to the dates, they're just there because I wanted a way to try and show the passage of time, but they're not super important and may be all wrong lol

**September 17, 1992.**

Tony Stark was known for his inability to stand still. Ever since he was a child, he could not stop moving. He would walk around the kitchen while Jarvis and Anna prepared breakfast, talking in a language only known to babies while Jarvis nodded and agreed with him. _Yes, master Anthony. And what DID your stuffed lion say? Is that so? What a naughty lion indeed, master Anthony._ Anna would watch with mirth in her eyes as her husband tried to divide his attention between the eggs and making sure the toddler didn’t accidently hurt himself. While in his highchair, little Tony would swing his legs, chubby hands grabbing everything and anything in his reach, unable to sit quietly and eat his carrots like Jarvis so desperately asked him to. Even on his bedtime, his mother had to hug him, holding him still as she sang him a lullaby.

As the years went by, Tony’s hyperactivity didn’t go away. In fact, it had somewhat worsened due to the high quantities of coffee he consumed daily. And so, it wasn’t really a surprise for Pepper to find her boss walking around the workshop, hands on his head, pulling the hair on it. DUM-E followed him closely, holding a glass with some sort of green gooey substance that Pepper would rather now know what it was. She walked to one of the chairs by the desk and sat down, crossing her legs and merely observing Tony for a few seconds, before asking if everything was alright.

Tony did not even glance her away, nor did he stop walking. “Show her, J.”, he said, sounding more afraid than Pepper had ever heard him sound.

Immediately, a hologram popped up in front of paper, showing an email from Dr. Burt containing the results from the paternity test.

“I’m going to be a father, Pepper. A father. Me. What the hell do I know about being a father? I can’t be a father. I’m nineteen. I don’t know shit”.

“Don’t you have a doctorate?” asked Pepper, with a small smile.

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think the baby is going to care much about that”, he answered sarcastically.

“Tony”, this time her voice was soft and understanding, “I know this is a lot to take in right now. It’s understandable to panic. But whatever you decide, you have people here that will help you through this, alright? Remember that”.

Suddenly, Tony stopped, making DUM-E crash right into him, the glass falling to the ground. The genius glared at this creation while DUM-E, looking very apologetic, bent his head in shame and walk away, probably going to search for a rag to clean his mess. Tony huffed, covering his face with both his hands. He walked to where Pepper was sitting and sat next to her, eyes fixed on the far wall in front of him, but unseeing, looking completely lost.

“I can’t be a father, Pepper. I spend entire nights working, I forget to eat and shower, I drink. And even if I was a proper human being, I don’t even know what a father is supposed to do”, this time he looked at Pepper, sadness in his eyes, “My father, he… He never much cared about me. He never once told me that he loved me or that he was proud of me. How can I be a father when I don’t even know what a real father is like?”

Pepper stared at him for a moment, biting her lower lip. Taking a deep breath, she turns on the chair, looking straight into her boss’ eyes.

“Listen to me, Tony. I asked Diana what she wanted, what she expected from you if her story happened to be true. She wants money. That’s it. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to even meet this child. You can pay her a good amount of money and she will disappear. So you need to think long and hard about what you want to do”, she grabbed his hands, holding them, “But I need you to know this, Tony. You’re not your father. You may not have had a good example of what a father is, but you know what a bad father looks like. So you can avoid doing the things Howard used to do. Having a child is scary, really scary. But don’t throw this away because you’re afraid of screwing up. You’ll screw up in some way, all parents do. A good father is supposed to love and protect their child. That’s it. If you think you can’t do that, then fine, but I think you can, Tony. And I think you want to”.

And with that, Pepper got up. “Think about it, okay. We’ll talk tomorrow”. And left the workshop, leaving Tony to his thoughts while DUM-E attempted to clean the big green stain on the floor with one of Tony’s Black Sabbath shirts.

 

* * *

 

That night, Tony didn’t sleep. He tossed and turned on his bed, unable to stop all the “what if’s” going through his head. _What if I’m a bad father? What if I screw up so bad the kid ends up traumatized? Or worse, what if the kid ends up like me?_ Memories flooded his mind as he stared at a fixed point in the ceiling. He had learned, at a very young age, to never expect anything from anyone and that promises meant nothing. When he was four years old, he built his very first circuit board. He remembered how proud his father looked when he saw it. He remembered asking his father to take him to the zoo as a reward for a good job, to which his father promptly agreed. _Yes, yes, of course, we’ll go tomorrow_ , he had said, already on the phone. Tony remembered waking up the next day, a smile on his face, putting on his best clothes with Jarvis’ help and running downstairs, all ready for a day at the zoo with his father. He ended up at the workshop instead, watching with sad eyes while some people he’d never seen before got cameras and more cameras ready. He remembered standing there, turning to Jarvis and saying _we’re not going to the zoo, are we, Jarvis?_ , and his butler’s sad eyes when he answered _maybe tomorrow, master Anthony, maybe tomorrow._

He remembered being eight years old, on the back of the car while Jarvis' drove him to boarding school. He remembered how his mother had kissed him goodbye while he begged her to let him stay. _This will be good for him, Anthony,_ she had said, _you’ll make friends, learn new things._ He remembered his father being at the middle of nowhere looking for a dead man’s body instead of being there, on the porch, saying goodbye and good luck to his only son. He remembered how Jarvis hugged him for at least five whole minutes before letting go, with tears in his eyes, promising him that, if Tony didn’t come for Christmas, he would come all the way here, to see him. And he remembered Jarvis standing beside the car watching Tony as he entered the new school.

He remembered being fifteen and getting into MIT. In his mind, he could clearly see the day he got the acceptance letter. How his father and mother called on their friends over and threw a party to celebrate it. And how Jarvis had baked him his favorite cake and told him how proud he was of him.

And then, more recent memories came to mind. The partying, the drugs, the alcohol. Could he ever just give up his lifestyle? Trade the booze for bottles? The nights full of partying for nights full of crying? Wouldn’t he be unhappy and end up resenting the child for taking from him the very things he loved doing?

“Shit”, he said, sitting up, “what the hell am I going to do, J.? I keep trying to picture myself raising a child and I just can’t”.

“If I may, sir…”, said the AI, “perhaps you should try a different approach. Have you tried imagining what would it be like to give up your rights to the child and never meeting them?”

And just like that, Tony started thinking about it. He pictured a small child, who looked an awful lot like him, a “happy father’s day” card in their hand, looking sadly around as he watched the other children hug and kiss their fathers. He imagined a boy learning how to shave all by himself because his father wasn’t there to teach him. He saw a woman in a wedding dress, walking alone because there was no father to give her away. He saw his child looking lost and wondering what was so wrong with them that even their own father didn’t want them.

And that’s when he made his decision.

As soon as the sun came up, Tony was at the phone, calling Diana. He called her three times before she finally picked up. _I’ll pay you anything you want_ , he said as soon as she said “hello”, _but I want to raise that kid_. After a long conversation and a signed contract, they finally reached a decision. Tony would raise the child on his own and Diana, who never really thought of herself as a mother and who very much wanted to finish college without the cries of a newborn baby at night, would visit whenever she wanted.

**November 14, 1992.**

Pepper arrived at the house at nine am with a stack of papers for her boss to sign. She was going straight to the workshop, where Tony could always be found at all times of the day, when JARVIS’ voice stopped her. _He’s at the nursery, Miss Potts._ That made Pepper stop immediately. She took a second to make sure she actually heard what Jarvis had said and then, with a confused look on her face, took the stairs to the second floor.

In one of the rooms, covered in pink paint, was Tony Stark. Pepper stopped at the door, smiling as she watched Tony paint one of the walls. His hair, his clothes, his shoes, all covered in paint. She cleared her throat, calling his attention. He turned around, a big smile on his face.

“So, what do you think? Look”, he said, showing her a box full of white wooden ballerinas, “they’re supposed to go on the walls. I thought about going with a space theme at first, but this is more traditional, right? We can do a space themed bedroom when she’s a little bigger”.

“She? It’s a girl? How do you know?”

“We went to the doctor yesterday. It’s a girl. Happy knows. Rhodey knows too”.

“So everybody knew except for me? I’m truly hurt, Tony”, Pepper said with a smile, shaking her head, “don’t you think it would be best to call someone to do all this?”

“No”, Tony answered forcefully, “I want to do it myself. I… I want to be a part of everything, you know. Painting the room, buying the crib and everything else… I want to do this right, Pep”.

Pepper merely nodded, knowing exactly why her boss felt the need to take such an active part on everything concerning his daughter. Tony didn’t talk much about his childhood and what his parents were like, having learned from a young age to mask his emotions and his traumas in order to show himself as a strong, capable man. _Stark men are made of iron_ , he would tell her every time she tried to tell him it was okay to be vulnerable sometimes. And now, here he was, inside an excessively pink room, a real smile on his face as he decided where the ballerinas would go.

“Pep, I have a question… Have you ever changed a diaper and can you teach me how to do it?”

**April 25, 1993.**

When the day came for Abigail ( _no, Rhodey, I’m not calling my daughter Jamie, and I’m not calling her Virginia either)_ to be born, Tony did not feel prepared at all. He was in the middle of a meeting with the board when Diana called, saying her water broke and she was on her way to the hospital. Tony was ashamed to admit that he panicked just a tiny little bit. Pepper immediately called Happy to bring the car out front and Obadiah told Tony to go and that he would be at the hospital as soon as the meeting was over. Everybody congratulated Tony as he ran out of the room.

On his way to the hospital, Tony called Rhodey who was ecstatic to hear his goddaughter was about to be born and assured his best friend that he would be in a plane to Malibu immediately. After they hung up, Pepper and Happy tried to calm down their boss as he repeated _I’m going to be a dad, holy crap, I’m going to be a dad_ nonstop.

Soon enough, they arrived at the hospital. The doctor came and informed Tony that it would be a difficult delivery due to the position of the baby, but assured the father to be that they were very much prepared for the task ahead. And so Tony, Happy and Pepper sat there and waited. Some time passed and Obadiah finally arrived, a box of cigars on his hand. He slapped Tony in the back, laughing.

“No more nights in the workshop for you, my boy. Only diapers and crying for now on”, he said and Tony smiled.

They waited and waited until a nurse came. Tony immediately got up, smiling. He couldn’t wait to see his baby girl and hold her in his arms. To sing her lullabies and tell her stories about Jarvis, and Anna, and her grandmother Maria. He was so full of joy and excitement that it took him a moment to notice the sad look on the nurse’s face.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stark. They did everything they could, but… They lost them. I’m sorry”.

The nurse continued to talk, but Tony wasn’t listening anymore. He couldn’t see nor hear anything, except for a voice inside his head that sounded too much like Howard. _Everybody leaves you, Tony_ , he whispered, _everyone always leaves you._ He felt someone hugging him and someone else holding his hand. People were talking. _Would you like to see her, Mr. Stark?,_ someone said and he felt himself nod. He followed the nurse without actually knowing what he was doing and only looked down when he felt her put the baby in his arms. _She’s so beautiful_ , he thought as he looked at her. Her eyes were closed and she was unnaturally still. He grabbed her tiny hand and started humming an old lullaby his mother always sang to him. He felt the tears coming down his face as he closed his eyes and kissed his little girl’s forehead for the first and last time.

 

* * *

 

Pepper arranged the funeral for both Diana and Abigail. Tony tried to do it himself, but one look at the tiny coffin they’d showed him and he couldn’t bring himself to do it. At the day of the burial, he stood there in his suit, eyes unseeing as they lowered their daughter into the ground. _Everybody leaves_ , the voice echoed in his mind, _everybody around you dies_. They asked him if he wanted to say a few words, but he refused. What could he say? How could he ever express the pain he felt right now? There were no words that could ever describe it. He had lost everything. Anna, Jarvis, his parents. _What is wrong with me? Why does everybody always leave me?_ , he asked himself. Abigail was his everything. He hadn’t even met her and yet he had loved her like he’d never loved anyone or anything in his entire life. He would’ve given up everything and anything for her. And now she was gone. And he was alone again.

Rhodey spent the next few weeks with him. He made sure Tony ate, sleep and took showers. He would sit beside his best friend every night at the nursery, in silence, as Tony stared at the empty crib. On the third week, Rhodey was in Tony’s bed, where he was sleeping every single night ever since the funeral, when JARVIS woke him up.

“Mr. Rhodes, I believe sir requires your presence. He’s at the nursery.”

Rhodey woke up startled and looked at the empty side of the bed. He got up quickly, already alert and ready thanks to his training as a soldier, and ran to the nursery. There, he found Tony on the floor, holding a small teddy bear while he sobbed loudly. Immediately, Rhodey sat down next to him and hugged him. Tony never showed much emotion, not even to his closest friends, and seeing him like this, completely gone in his grief made Rhodes sick to his stomach.

“Why does everybody always leave, Rhodey?”, he asked, hugging his friend like his life depended on it, “Why do they always leave me?”.

 

* * *

 

 

On the other side of town, at Stark Industries, Obadiah Stane sat comfortably in his office, a glass of whiskey in one hand while he talked on his phone.

“So, everything went according to plan”, he said, taking a sip as he looked outside at the beautiful night sky, “all that we need to do now is to take care of those loose ends”.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stane”, answered the voice on the phone, “accidents happen. After all, doctors work long shifts and you know how dangerous it is to drive when tired, don’t you?”

“What about the nurse?”

“A young woman walking home alone at night? A mugging gone wrong is very common”.

Stane laughed quietly taking another sip of his drink. “Good. And the girl? She better not come back, Pierce. I have enough trouble with one Stark, I don’t need another”.

“I sent her to an associate of ours. She was very happy to receive one more subject to test her serum on. Apparently, she never tried it on a baby before. She’s looking forward to studying its effects on Stark’s daughter”, Pierce said, sounding amused, “Are you sure you don’t want to finish this? We could make it look like a suicide. Poor man couldn’t handle the death of his daughter”.

“No, no. We need him. For now. But you’ll be the first to know when he outlives his usefulness”.

“Very well, then. Hail Hydra”.


	3. Interlude - April, 1998

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be in Chapter 3, but I ended up changing a few things and it didn't fit there anymore. So, I decided to post it here, as a "bonus" chapter. I hope you guys like it.

**April, 1998**

**Malibu, CA, USA.**

He walked through the cemetery, passing graves and more graves, not paying much attention to his surroundings. He had visited this place so many times in the last five years that he didn’t even have to look around. The path was burned into his memory. As he got closer to his destination, he felt the familiar pain in his chest, as if an invisible hand was squeezing his heart and twisting his insides. It became hard to breathe. It always did. He should be used to it by now, but he wasn’t. He didn’t think he would ever be.

When he finally arrived, he stood there, looking down at the three graves for several minutes. They were clean and there were fresh flowers (lilies, his mother’s favorites) on top of each one. He reminded himself to thank Jack, the caretaker, for such a wonderful work.

“Hi, mom. I miss you. I hope you’re taking good care of my little girl”, he said with a sad smile, before kneeling down closer to the third grave, gently stroking the letters in the headstone:

 

_Abigail Maria Stark_

_Beloved daughter_

 

 “Hey, baby girl. Happy birthday”, he whispered, placing a small teddy bear with a red bow on top of the grave as he sat down, “I miss you. I wish you were here to celebrate your day. I was thinking, maybe, we could have gone to the beach, have a picnic, eat ice cream. We could make sandcastles, like Jarvis and I used to when I was little. I bet you’d have liked that”.

He told her about his day, his new inventions and the company. He told her that he and her uncle Obie had just closed a huge deal, that her uncle Rhodey became captain and that DUM-E still put everything he could find lying around the workshop in the blender, including old socks, motor oil and, one time, Tony’s cell phone. The sun was already setting when Tony finally got up and said goodbye.

By the time he arrived at the mansion, Pepper was already gone. _Good,_ he thought, entering though the door while holding a small colorful box and a bag. He didn’t want anyone to see or be a part of this. He knew that if Rhodey or Pepper (or, worse of all, Obie) found out about his little tradition they would try to talk him out of it. They would think it was salt in the wound, a way for Tony to torture himself every year, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was a stupid thing to do, he knew, but, in a weird way, it brought him comfort on this sad day.

“JARVIS, you there?”

The answer came immediately. “For you, sir, always”.

Tony smiled as he walked down the stairs. He entered the workshop, where DUM-E, U and Butterfingers were already waiting for him. He placed the box on the table and took three colorful birthday hats out of the bag, placing them on his bots with some difficulty while they moved around, clearly excited. When that was done and over, he sat down and opened the box, taking out a small cake with blue and pink frosting and a candle shaped like a number 5.

“Second drawer to your left, sir”, JARVIS said. Tony followed the instruction and found the little box of matches inside the drawer. He took one and lighted up the candle.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Abby”, he sang quietly with tears in his eyes but a small smile on his face, “Happy birthday to you”.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ATTENTION: scenes of child abuse (nothing too extreme, though) and violence.

**March, 2005.**

**Nuremberg, Germany.**

Natalya knew this day would come. She liked to think she had prepared herself accordingly to face it when the moment arrived. She was very well trained, after all. She did not fear death, she did not accept failure, she was silent, deadly, the best spy and assassin the Red Room had trained in years. She wore that badge with pride. She was a ghost. The mere mention of her name could instill fear into the heart of the bravest man. In many circles, they would not even dare to say it aloud. Only in terrified whispers… _The Black Widow_. She was proud of her achievements, always had been. All her life, her skills were the only thing she had, the only thing they ― Red Room, the KGB, her enemies ― could not take away. The only thing that was truly hers.

Natalya was many things, but foolish was not one of them. She knew that one day she would meet an adversary that would keep her in her toes, be her match in every way. She did not, however, expect that person to be a SHIELD agent with a bow and arrow.

 

* * *

 

**April, 1998.**

**Unknown Location, Russia.**

Natalya didn’t remember many things from before the Red Room. She remembered the hunger, the kind that twists your insides until they hurt, makes your eyes water and your vision blurry, and won’t go away even when you finally manage to sleep at night, drifting off amidst the sounds of a growling stomach. She remembered a doll, old and ugly, with dirty hair and a missing eye, that always brought comfort to the little red haired girl when she was sad. But most of all, she remembered the cold. She remembered the loss of feeling on her arms and legs, the constant trembling, and just sitting in a corner of the room, hugging an old, dirty blanket as she shrunk, trying to make herself smaller and smaller, hoping it would somehow make her feel warm. There were, however, many things Natalia could no longer remember. She couldn’t remember her mother or her father. What they were like or what they looked like. Did they miss her? Did they love her? Would she remember them if she ever saw them again? Would they? She didn’t know. She tried not to think too much about that.

 _Focus, Natalya_. The other man came at her, ready to grab her, but she was quicker. She crouched, escaping his hands, and rolled to the other side, putting distance between the attacker and herself, before running straight at him. She grabbed his arm when he tried to throw a punch, twisting it as she jumped on his back, throwing her legs forward and locking her ankles behind his head as she easily turned and brought him down in a perfectly executed move. She saw the other man, the one she had put on the ground minutes before, coming behind her back. In that moment, she thought of at least nine ways she could easily stop him. But she did nothing. She stood there as he grabbed her neck, cutting her air flow as she pretended to struggle, to be helpless in his hold. She tapped his arm when her vision started to darken. He let her go and she fell to the floor, taking deep, desperate breaths.

Natalya heard the clicking of high heels on the wooden floor and looked up as her handler approached a displeased look on her face. The young woman looked away, suddenly ashamed and angry at herself for disappointing her handler.

“Floppy”, she said, circling Natalya, the heels clicking as she walked, “Pretending to fail”.

Natalya remained silent, looking straight ahead, gasping for air in the suddenly very quiet room. The handler crouched, forcing the teenager to look into her eyes as she spoke.

“The ceremony is necessary. For you to take your place in the world”.

“I have no place in the world”, Natalya interrupted immediately, the words falling so naturally from her mouth it was impossible not to believe they were true. They echoed inside her head.

“Exactly”, the handler answered, getting up and adjusting her clothes, “Tomorrow, then. The doctors will come to prepare you”.

Natalya stayed there, on the cold floor, resigned to her fate as the handler walked away. _I have no place in the world._

 

* * *

 

**March, 2005**

**Berlin, Russia.**

**Hours before her final mission.**

Her handler had called her up to the briefing room at 0600. He was standing near the window, wearing a pristine military uniform and holding a file in his hands. Natalya walked in and sat down at the end of the table, silent. The man acknowledged her with a nod and walked over, dropping the file in front of her. She opened it.

“Andrei Mikhailovsky. He trained many of our agents. He disappeared three years ago. Our spies in Germany sent word six hours ago that Andrei is currently in Nuremberg. He’s been selling information, telling our secrets to enemies of Russia. He must be stopped”.

The man walked back to his previous spot, both hands behind his back, facing the windows as he continued to talk.

“Our sources informed me that he plans on meeting an American agent tomorrow morning. He will probably exchange his knowledge for asylum. He knows we are looking for him. And we do not forgive betrayal. You will leave immediately for Nuremberg. Your mission is to eliminate Andrei before his meeting with this American scum. Do you understand, agent Romanova?”

“I understand”, she answered, still staring at the target’s picture.

In retrospect, she should have known this was a trap.

It was never this easy.

 

* * *

 

**June, 1999.**

**Unknown Location, Russia.**

The first time Natalya met her was at the Red Room’s training facility. She had been summoned by her handler, Eva, which was not usual. Sometimes an asset in training would become too cocky, too sure of their abilities. They’d start thinking they deserved more than what was offered to them in the Red Room. So Natalya would come and teach them a valuable lesson. _You have no place in the world,_ Eva would tell them as they layed bleeding on the floor after the red head was done with them, _do not forget that_ _or you will come to regret it_. And so, when Natalya was summoned, she thought nothing of it. _Another silly girl to tear apart_ , she told herself as she walked through the corridors. She was not expecting, however, the silly girl in question to be so young.

She must have been five, six years old, with short, black hair and brown eyes. When Natalya walked inside the training facility, the little girl was fighting a girl three times her size. And she was losing. She was punched, kicked, thrown to the ground like a rag doll only to immediately get up again, head and lips bleeding, arm broken and trying desperately to breath, as Eva and another woman, one Natalya had never seen before, watched with glee in their eyes. It all came to an end when the older girl, apparently tired of playing around, threw the little girl on the floor once more, stepping on her back, making the child scream in pain. She grabbed the child’s head with both hands and looked at Eva, ready to finish the fight as soon as the handler gave the order.

Eva smiled. “That’s enough, Inna, let her go”.

In that moment, Natalya knew something was very wrong. Eva was not merciful, quite the opposite, in fact. She took great pleasure in watching her assets tear each other apart at her command. _Whoever she is_ , Natalya thought, as the little girl sat down, tears streaming down her bloodied face, _she is important._

“Ah, Natalya”, Eva said, finally noticing her brightest pupil. She turned to the other girls, “you’re dismissed. Go”. The assets nodded and left the room, leaving behind Natalya, Eva, the other woman and the child, who was still sobbing quietly on the ground.

“Dr. Kudrin, this is Natalya. I can say, without a doubt, she is the best asset we’ve trained in years”.

Natalya nodded, acknowledging the compliment. “It’s a pleasure, Dr. Kudrin”.

Dr. Kudrin simply smiled and turned to the child. “Anastasia, come here”.

The child looked up, lips quivering and eyes still full of tears. She got up on wobbly legs, rubbing her arm on her face, trying to clean the blood and the tears. She walked very slowly, sniffing and holding down sobs, and stopped next to the doctor, looking up.

“This is Anastasia. She is our new asset”, Eva said while the child stared at Natalya with her big, brown eyes, “I have selected you, Natalya, to train the child, teach her everything I taught you. Do you think you’re up to the challenge?”

It wasn’t really a question. _There’s not really a choice here_ , Natalya thought, feeling somewhat angry at that. The handlers liked to sometimes make their orders sound like questions, maybe to give the assets the feeling that they actually had a choice, that they could decide for themselves. Nat knew that wasn’t true. And she hated that. But the anger she felt soon gave way to shame. _My handler knows what’s best for me_ , she told herself. Eva was honoring her with her trust. _I am nothing, and yet she trusts me_.

“I will not let you down, madam”, she answered, head high and shoulders back.

“See that you don’t, Natalya”, replied Eva, “Anastasia has a purpose, a mission she must be ready for when the time comes”.

She turned to fully face Natalya, a predatory smile on her lips. “Do not disappoint me”.

 

* * *

 

**March, 2005**

**Nuremberg, Germany.**

Finding Andrei was not difficult at all. That should have been her first clue. A man who had successfully evaded the KGB for three years should not have been this easy to find and follow. The temperature had dropped drastically that day, covering the city in snow. Blending in to the crowd didn’t require much effort because almost everyone had their faces partially covered with a scarf, in an attempt to protect themselves from the unforgiving cold wind.

Andrei, however, did not cover his face. That should have been the second clue. Why would a man who had been hiding from Russian spies for three years not take this perfect opportunity to cover himself and make it more difficult for possible threats to identify him? It didn’t make sense. Natalya should have noticed. Looking back on this day, she would curse herself for not noticing the clear signs. But, in her defense, her mind wasn’t completely focused on the mission.

She walked behind the target with both hands inside her overcoat’s pockets, putting a good distance between them, so Andrei would not realize he was being followed. Her eyes were trained on him, but her mind was replaying the encrypted message she had received that morning. It was simple, straight to the point, and virtually untraceable, just like Natalya had taught her.

_Mission successful. Back to base. Miss you._

_―_ _Little bunny._

 

 

* * *

 

**January, 2000**

**Unknown Location, Russia.**

“Again”, Natalya said, pressing play on the small radio again.

Once more, music filled the room. A calm, soothing melody. Anastasia took a deep breath and assumed her position. Her eyes were filled with tears as each step she took, graceful as they were, sent spikes of pain up her legs. She had been dancing for hours. How many, she did not know. She was tired, thirsty, hungry and utterly miserable. Still, her expression did not waver. Natalya could see the pain in her eyes, the tremble on her hands, but the girl kept on moving, as if nothing fazed her. She didn’t stop, didn’t flinch, not even as her feet bled, leaving gruesome drawings on the floor.

Natalya was proud of her. She had never been proud of anyone but herself before. It was a very weird, but nice emotion. Despite that, she did not smile. She was the girl’s handler, not her mother, not her friend. She could not smile every time the girl accomplished something. _But why_ , that little, traitorous voice inside her head whispered, _she is trying so hard to impress you. Why can’t you smile to show her she’s doing well? Just one smile won’t change anything_. It was tempting. But she couldn’t. She was the girl’s handler and that was all. _A good handler appreciates their assets, Natalya,_ Eva had said right after she took Anastasia in, _but they must never get attached. Attachment is weakness, Natalya. Are you weak?_

She was not weak. Nor did she wish to be. Anastasia also could not be weak. In the Red Room, weakness was not tolerated. The weak assets were killed. Only the best survived. Anastasia had to survive. And for that to happen, Natalya needed to train her like she herself had been trained. _I’m not going to let you die_ , she thought to herself, watching as the girl came to a stop as the music faded away, her head down, eyes fixed on the floor, waiting for her next instructions.

 _She needs to learn_ , Natalya thought to herself firmly. Still, she could hear the pain and regret in her own voice when she spoke out loud once more. “Again”.

 

* * *

 

 **March,** **2005.**

**Nuremberg, Germany.**

Natalya had been following the target for almost an hour now. He walked slowly, constantly looking around, eyes wide with fear. He clutched a black briefcase to his arms, seeming terrified of the very idea of losing it. That meant he had something important there, something, perhaps, that could convince the American to give him asylum. Something he could exchange for his protection.

Andrei stopped at an abandoned house in a bad neighborhood. Natalya looked around. All the windows from all the houses around her were closed, which was not usual, considering the weather. What was unusual, though, was the lack of people on the streets and the fact that all windows were either completely void of light or covered in curtains. It was too quiet, too deserted. And that’s when she finally noticed. _It’s a trap_. She needed to move quickly. Eliminate Andrei and take the briefcase.

As he opened the door to the abandoned house, Natalya ran. The snow made it difficult, but it wasn’t her first time dealing with less than ideal environments. Andrei turned, having heard the sound of her boots kicking snow as she ran, and for a moment he looked absolutely terrified. He did not have time to react as Natalya threw a knife straight at his head.

She heard the sound before she saw it. A quick WOOSH echoed through the empty street, followed by a THUNK as an arrow hit the knife still in the air, stopping it mere inches before it plunged into Andrei’s eye. Natalya followed the knife with her own eyes as it fell into the snow before looking up, quickly searching the top of the buildings for whoever had shot that arrow. Andrei, however, had taken the opportunity to get inside the house, leaving the briefcase behind as he ran. Natalya took off after him. She ducked close to the door, throwing herself forward and rolling inside, just as another arrow flew and barely missed her.

She stayed down, being careful not to stay in the direction of any windows. She heard footsteps upstairs. _Idiot_ , she thought, _you just trapped yourself here with me_. Natalya took a second to look at the close by window and then ran towards the stairs. She heard, again, the WOOSH of the arrows and the sound of glass breaking as she passed through the three windows. She ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, while taking her gun from its holster. She stopped, looking at the corridor in front of her. Four doors, all closed. She needed to be quick. Whoever was shooting arrows at her would not be staying at the top of a building much longer. Not when they’re very obviously trying to save Andrei’s life.

She kicked the first door open, pointing her gun inside, quickly scanning the room for signs of her target. She finally found him behind the third door, cowering on the ground, no weapon with him. As soon as he saw her, he put his hands up, begging in Russian.

“Please, please, don’t…”

Natalya didn’t have time for this. She put a bullet between his eyes just as she heard the unmistakable sound of a body slamming through a glass window. She ran outside the room at the same time a man with blond hair and a very purple uniform came out of the first room. He held a bow in his right hand and used his left to try and get an arrow from his quiver. Natalya raised the gun to shoot, but the purple bastard was quick. He shot an arrow straight at her hand, making her drop the weapon. She did not hesitate. She ran towards him, holding his bow and throwing her head to the side as another arrow flew inches from her ear. She twisted the bow, trying to take it from his hands, but he saw it coming. He turned, slamming his elbow on her face, making her loose her balance, putting distance between them once more.

But Natalya wasn’t known as the Black Widow for nothing. Close ranged combat was her specialty. She kicked him as hard as she could in the chest, forcing the archer to take several steps back. She didn’t waste time, grabbing the bow once again and twisting her body, so she had her back to him. She slammed her head at his nose, the sound of it breaking being muffled by his yelp of pain. He let go of the bow, and Natalya turned once more, now with his weapon securely on her right hand. She briefly looked at him before jumping and kicking him on the chest with one foot and at the face with the other. He fell to the ground, moaning, as she flipped in the air and planted her feet gracefully to the ground once more. She took advantage of the fact that he was down on all fours, most likely trying not to drown on his own blood, and used the bow string to secure his neck, quickly getting behind him, one knee on his back as she pulled with all her strength, cutting his air. He gasped, fumbling hands trying to get to his quiver.

Suddenly, pink smoke appeared before Natalya’s eyes. She inhaled, surprised, and let go of the bow, her vision becoming dark, her head spinning. The man, immediately after being released from the death hold, threw his body on the floor, covering his face. The smoke, she finally noticed, was coming from one of the arrows on his quiver. It was too late now. Natalya couldn’t see and her body felt heavy and weird and wrong. She felt to the ground, gasping for air and the last thought she had before succumbing to the darkness was _I can’t believe I’m going to be killed by a guy in a purple suit with a bow and arrow._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natalia have a conversation. They trade stories and Natalia makes a decision that will change her life.

**March, 2005**

**Washington, DC, USA.**

The table was covered in pictures. Men and women, of all ages and races, staring back at him with dead, unseeing eyes. Strangled, poisoned, shot, stabbed, drowned. A particular man, probably in his mid thirties, stood out. His skull had been crushed; brain, bone and blood covered the cold floor. Even after years on the job, Clint Barton still felt sick every time he had to look at scenes like that. He was no stranger to human cruelty. He had known, from a very early age, what people were capable of when given the right incentive. Still, seeing things like this, it always upset his stomach.

He took the file once again, re-reading the information SHIELD had managed to acquire on the infamous Black Widow. Truth be told, there wasn’t much. They knew she was a woman. They knew she’d been trained by the Red Room, some sort of academy for assassins and spies, as discovered by Director Peggy Carter years ago. And that was it. That was all the information they had. They didn’t know what she looked like. They couldn’t even confirm if all the kills credited to her had **actually** been her work. The Black Widow was a ghost and it was Clint’s mission to put an end to her.

He had forty-eight hours before the mission. SHIELD had planted the information that Andrei Mikhailovsky was in Germany and currently negotiating with an American agent, trading Russian secrets for asylum. The plan was to let the man wander through the city and go to a specific location while Clint kept an eye on him from afar. It was a risky plan, but it was their only chance to finally neutralize the Black Widow.

“Already familiar with all the details, I hope, Barton”, said a voice from the door. Clint didn’t turn nor did he acknowledge the new comer in any way, continuing to stare at the pictures on the table as if the other man wasn’t even there.

The man rolled his eyes and shook his head as he carefully approached the archer. As he got closer, Clint seemed to finally notice his presence, turning to look at him. The archer smiled and quickly turned on his hearing aids.

“Hey, Phil. Just getting acquainted with our little spider over here.”

“A very **deadly** little spider, try not to forget that part”, the older man answered, pressing his hands on the table and pushing his upper-body forward to take a better look at the pictures. He took one (the man with the broken skull) on his hands, examining it with a frown. “Very, very deadly spider”.

“I’ve face worse, you know that”.

“She’s killed half the agents we sent after her, Clint. And the other half just disappeared. Excuse me for worrying”, he said, throwing the picture back on the table.

“Hey”, Clint said softly, standing up and taking Coulson’s hand to his lips, kissing the back of it. “It’ll be fine. I’m pretty damn good at this job, boss”.

“This is highly unprofessional”, he answered, but did not move his hand.

“Oh boy, if you think this was unprofessional, you’re really not gonna like what I’m gonna do next”.

Clint did not give Coulson time to answer, pulling the older man to a deep kiss. He felt strong hands on his hips, pulling him even closer, as he circled Coulson’s neck with his own. _God_ , he thought to himself, tongue caressing every inch of his partner’s mouth, _I could kiss this man forever_.

Too soon, they broke the kiss, foreheads touching as they tried to catch their breaths. They stayed like that for a moment, just breathing and admiring each other’s faces. Coulson touched Clin’ts red lips softly with his thumb, all his blood immediately going south when the younger man bit on it with a smirk. He took a step back, adjusting his suit and returning to his usual, very professional self.

“You have a plane to catch. Don’t die out there.”

“Oh, don’t worry, boss, I have plans this weekend that I **really** can’t miss”, Clint replied with a wink.

Coulson had his back turned to him as he left the room so Clint couldn’t see his face, but he’s willing to bet his bow and arrow that his partner was fighting a smile.

* * *

Clint couldn’t stop thinking about the Black Widow. He read and re-read the file a thousand times on his way to Germany. Peggy Carter’s neat handwriting was oddly soothing even though the words written brought Clint no peace of mind.

_“According to the information acquired, the place is known as the Red Room, an academy for the training of assassins and spies in the Soviet Union. The place was discovered during a mission, in 1984, when the Howling Commandos, SSR agent Jack Thompson and I infiltrated a facility believed to be a Leviathan base camp in Belarus._

_Upon investigation, we discovered the facility had a structure similar to that of a school, with many rooms posing as classrooms, including a video room we believe was used to dispense subliminal messages through movies._

_A young girl, around 10 years of age, was found in the facility. She stabbed Timothy “Dum Dum” Dugan, managed to steal his weapon and shot Jonathan “Junior” Juniper, who died on the scene._

_We believe the Red Room trained young girls to become elite assassins and undercover operatives through a process of indoctrination and desensitizing, teaching them hand-to-hand combat and other tactical skills. We also believe other facilities similar to the one found exist throughout the Soviet Union.”_

It was hard to believe something like this existed. _Where did they even get the “young girls”?_ , he thought as he looked out the window, staring at the clouds. The pictures kept showing again and again on his mind. The brutality, the complete lack of empathy, it astonished. The worst part was he didn’t even know why he was so shocked with what he had read and seen. He had faced worse people in his life, both as a SHIELD agent and as a dumb teenager, but this one woman, knowing what she had probably gone through and what she had done, it made him sick to his stomach.

Maybe Phil was right. Maybe he really was projecting his own emotions on this target. He had had a very complicated childhood, followed by a crappy adolescence. Clint had gone through things no child should have to go through, and he knew in his heart that, if Phil Coulson hadn’t given him a chance that day, he’d probably be the one being target by SHIELD today. He owned his life to Phil and SHIELD. They had given him a chance to be someone else, something more than just the dishonest, murdering piece of shit that others had made of him. _What if someone gave this woman the chance I was given?,_ he couldn’t help but wonder, _would she choose the right side if someone gave her the chance?_

* * *

  **February, 1983**

**Waverly, Iowa.**

Barney was late. Again.

_He really has no self-preservation skills_ , Clint thought as he slowly dragged a huge bag of garbage outside. Barney was supposed to be helping Clint clean the shop, but, as usual, he’d left early in the morning and had yet to return. God, Clint could already hear his father’s booming voice inside his head. _You were supposed to help your brother, Barney,_ he would scream, _you need to pull your weight if you want to live under my roof, you useless fucking cunt_. Then Barney would scream back, because of course he would, he did every single time, the utter moron, and their father would get angrier and angrier and just smack both of them a good few times before passing out drunk in the living room. _Sometimes having a brother fucking sucks_ , he thought to himself, throwing the bag into the garbage bin, trying so very hard not to rip it because, really, the last thing he needed right now was to be covered in rotten meat and bones.

  He went back to the shop, wrinkling his noise at the stench of old, dead animal, running straight to the sink to try and wash it off.

“Hey, shrimp”, he heard from behind him, turning around to see Barney, who was entering the shop with a big smile on his face. Clint was immediately suspicious.

“Where the hell were you? I had to take all the trash out by myself, asshole”.

“Hey, chill. I was helping Mr. Connor out with some boxes”.

“You’re supposed to be helping ME”.

“Yeah, well, that fat ass Harold doesn’t pay me”, he replied with a smile, putting his hand inside his pocket and taking two little pieces of chocolate out, “but Mr. Connor does. Here, take them, I already ate two!”

Clint didn’t need to be told twice. He quickly patted his hands on his worn out, dirty pants, trying to get them dry as fast as possible, before lunging himself at Barney, taking both pieces of chocolate. He put one in his mouth and almost moaned.

“Oh, man, that’s one of the good ones”.

“Yeah, none of that shit that tastes like cardboard! He gave me the expensive ones!”

“Awesome!”, the younger brother replied, already chewing the other piece with a  satisfied sigh.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s pretty good, now get your ass upstairs, I’ll finish up here”.

“Okay. Only thing left is mopping the front”.

“Yeah, I’ll do it. Take a shower, you stink”.

_Sometimes having a brother can be pretty cool_.

* * *

  **March,** **2005.**

**Nuremberg, Germany.**

It was cold. Too fucking cold. God, how he hated snow. He was wearing the new suit SHIELD had given him. It was warmer than the last one because science. The girl ― was it Fitz? Or Simmons? He always got confused with those two ― had explained to him every single new feature of his suit and Clint pretended to listen with interest while debating inside his own head what would be the best way to ask the girl if he could take one of the donuts on the nearby table. Still, even with all the thingamabobs they had put in his suit, it was fucking cold. Too fucking cold.

He was at the top of a building, bow and arrow on his back, watching Andrei intently and trying to find anything suspicious or out of place. Missions like this during winter were the worse. Everybody wore big coats with scarves covering their faces. Stupid winter.

“Hey, Andrei, you doing good, man”, Clint said on his comms, “you’re almost at the creepy ass house, just a little longer”.

“Do you see her?”, the Russian asked in a whisper, sounding terrified.

“Not yet, but don’t worry, I got you covered”.

“Why do I have to carry briefcase? Waste of time, makes it hard to run”.

“Come on, man, you were a spy. You know this shit. She sees the briefcase, she’s gonna think you’ve got something important there. That way she’ll only try to kill you in a place where she has easy access to it”.

Andrei huffed. “If you think that would stop Black Widow, you are more fool than I thought”. Clint decided to ignore the reply completely and just kept following him.

He knew the ex-KGB was scared. Damn, if it was him at Andrei’s place, he’d be scared shitless too. The man was a sitting duck, a literal walking target, and he was being hunted by one of the best assassins in the business. He had a damn good reason to be terrified. Clint couldn’t blame him for that.

It was a hard mission. Clint knew that. Andrei knew that. So many things could go wrong. The cold and the snow were problematic, he had no idea what the Black Widow looked like or even if they had really sent her in the first place. He had no idea what to expect from this. It’s true that was Clint’s specialty, going into the unknown with nothing but his courage, bow and arrow and devilish good looks. But this, this was another level entirely. Protecting a mobile target from an unknown threat was always hard. Protecting a mobile target from someone who once killed a man in the middle of a party with 400 people without being detected was, well, let’s just say it again, Andrei had a very real reason to be terrified.

Soon enough, Andrei reached the final destination of his little tour. And that’s when Clint saw her. She wore a black overcoat and had a blue scarf wrapped tightly around her neck, her red hair falling down like a fire waterfall. He barely had time to draw an arrow before she took out running. She was fast, even with the snow. Suddenly, a knife was flying through the air, aimed straight at Andrei’s head. She was fast and skilled. _Well, I’m fast and skilled too, lady_.

The arrow hit the knife with incredible precision. Clint smiled, proud of his own work and looked at where the supposed Black Widow was. She looked up, most likely trying to find him.

“Andrei, you might wanna run, man”, Clint said over the comms. It was pointless, really, because Andrei was no fool. He had already taken off, running as fast as he could inside the house.

The Black Widow soon followed. Clint aimed an arrow at her leg. He missed. _Goddamn it_ , he thought, already drawing another arrow and trying to hit his target through the windows. Missed again.

“God fucking damn it”, he exclaimed, taking a “rope arrow” and aiming just above the window on the second floor. Using his bow, he quickly descended through the rope, slamming his body at the widow, glass going everywhere. He heard a gunshot. _Shit shit shit_.

Ok, so Clint was man enough to admit, the woman was terrifying. She stared at him like she was ready to cut him mouth to anus, open him up like a Christmas ham and feast on his insides. So, yeah, terrifying.

They fought. She was good. She was better than good. The Black Widow fought like she had been born for it. She fought like someone who had been fighting since preschool and had no problem in using every means necessary to win a fight. Clint knew his orders. Coulson’s voice suddenly appeared in his head as she broke his nose.

_No one is going to cry too much over Andrei. Your priority is to eliminate the target. If it comes between saving his life and eliminating the Black Widow, you eliminate the target. Do you understand, agent?_

He reached behind his back, trying desperately not to choke on his own blood as she pressed his own bow harder at his throat. Finally, he managed to grab one of the sedative arrows. He quickly covered his mouth and nose as pink smoke came out of his quiver. The Black Widow let go. Clint fell to the ground, covering his face and trying not to breath. He heard the sound of a body hitting the wooden floor and turned back. The Black Widow was down.

The smoke dissipated. Clint turned around, still sitting on the floor, and looked at her. He had a gun. He could make it fast, easy. She was heavily sedated, she wouldn’t even feel it. It would be mercy, really.

_There’s no point in interrogating her. She won’t talk. Torture doesn’t work and she has no weak spots. Eliminate her on sight._

But shit. She looked young. Barely an adult. God, she was probably the same age he was when he… Damn. _I had a second chance. Doesn’t she deserve one too?_ He knew it was different, but… Was it really? Were she and him really that different? She’d had a shitty childhood, much shittier than Clint’s, that’s for sure. Harold had been an abusive dick, but he was no Red Room. They had taken everything from her. Just like they had taken everything from Clint. Maybe, maybe she was more like him than he thought. Maybe all she needed was a chance to be good.

He turned his head, looking straight at Andrei’s body, blood covering the floor. _Shit_ , he thought, getting up and walking towards the woman, _Coulson is going to make me sleep on the couch for a year._

* * *

  **September, 1985.**

**Waverly, Iowa.**

It was a good night. And Clint was aware how rare good nights were in his house, so he was determined to enjoy it. His mother was making steaks. Steaks! He couldn’t remember the last time he ate steaks. He started salivating just thinking about it. His father only ever let them have the crappy meats, the ones no one would buy. But today he had been in a good mood. According to Barney, some fancy guy had bought a shitload of meat from the shop and Harold was smiling from ear to ear. And when Harold was happy ― which was VERY rare ― so was the rest of the family.

Clint was sitting at the table, drawing in a piece of paper. He sometimes raised his head and watched his mother for a few minutes, cooking and humming a song he didn’t recognize. She looked happy. She deserved to be happy. He smiled. Barney was cutting potatoes, sometimes glancing longingly at the steaks. The whole kitchen smelled great. It was a great night. So, of course, Harold had to ruin it.

He came into the kitchen so fast Clint didn’t even notice him before he grabbed his hair and pulled him from his chair. He cried out in pain, trying to escape his father’s death grip.

“WHERE IS THE MONEY, YOU FUCKING CUNT”, he screamed, eyes wide and face as red as a tomato. He stank of alcohol. _This is not good_ , was all Clint could think of.

“Let him go, Harold!”

“HE STOLE THE MONEY, EDITH, HE CLEANED OUT THE REGISTER, I KNOW IT WAS YOU BOY, WHERE IS IT”.

“He didn’t steal nothing, you fucking drunk, put him down”, Barney exclaimed, and when the man didn’t listen, he took the knife he was using before and waved it around menacingly, “PUT HIM DOWN”.

That finally got his father’s attention. He let go of Clint like he was a dirty sack of potatoes and stepped closer to his older son.

“Oh, is that how it is. You’re a big man now, aren’t you, you useless piece of shit? I bet it was you, wasn’t it. You’ve always been a greedy little bastard”.

“No one took your money, Harold, for the love of God”, Edith begged, putting herself between her son and her husband, “please, stop this!”

But Harold was having none of it. He took his wife’s arm and twisted it, pulling her closer. “You want to protect these little fuckers? FINE”.

He started dragging her out of the kitchen. “Stay with your brother”, Edith said when Barney tried to go after her, “stay with him, okay, dear?”

She was obviously trying not to cry, but both children could see the solitary tear streaming down her face. Harold slammed the kitchen door closed. Barney went straight for Clint, hugging his younger brother. “It’s gonna be okay”, he whispered as the boy covered his ears with both hands and cried, “it’s gonna be alright”.

_This could have been a good night._

* * *

  **March,** **2005.**

**Nuremberg, Germany.**

She was still out, which was good, because Clint had no clue what he was going to say to her. Shooting people with a bow and arrow? Easy. Infiltrating the heavily guarded mansion of the boss of one of the most dangerous cartels in the world? Ugh, at least give him a challenge. Now, social interactions of any kind? Yeah, that was a big no-no.

So here he was, sitting on the floor, eating some cup noodles while he stared at the red headed woman in front of him, thinking what the hell he was going to say to her and how the hell he was going to convince her to join SHIELD. They were inside an old police station used by the agency as a safe house. There was no one there but Clint and the Black Widow. He had bound both her arms and legs and put her in one of the cells, locking the door and hiding the key. _Not that any of this would actually stop her_ , he thought, wincing as he touched his broken nose. But it was the best he could do right now and that would just have to do.

He had called Coulson. Informed him that Andrei was dead, that they needed a cleanup crew to take care of the scene and that he had taken a very much alive Black Widow to a SHIELD safe house, surprise! Needless to say, his partner was **not** happy. He maintained a professional stance, like he always did, the perfect bastard, but Clint knew his Phil enough to notice the strain in his voice, the worry in his words. There were so many ways this could go wrong. So many. She could manage to run away and inform her employers that SHIELD was on to them. She could kill Clint in the process, leaving Phil to bury a disfigured body (if there even was a body in the end). She could accept Clint’s offer, betray him, steal a shitload of SHIELD’s secrets and return to Russia a hero. So many damn things could go wrong. But Clint knew that, if he didn’t do this, if he didn’t try, he would regret it for the rest of his life.

Phil had been very honest with him. _You’re projecting, agent Barton_ , he had said over the phone, _she’s not you. She’s nothing like you. She doesn’t have what you have._ And Clint knew what he meant. She didn’t have a Barney. She didn’t have a burning regret that destroyed her very being and reminded her everyday of how easy it was to succumb to a life of hatred and revenge. But maybe she had something else. Something that would make leaving this life of torture and complete lack of autonomy an easy choice, a smart choice. He could only hope that was the case. He was too young and handsome to die a horrible death on the hands of the world’s best assassin.

The woman stirred slightly. She moaned in a soft tone, moving her head slowly to the side, her eyes blinking as she woke up. The sedative was a strong one. She wouldn’t be able to actually move her body for at least three more hours, so that gave Clint plenty of time to talk to her. _I hope._ He continued to eat his noodles and stare at her. She stared right back at him, her face giving away nothing. _She can put Coulson’s Neutral Face of Displeasure right out of business._

“Hi. I’m Clint”.

_Oh for the love of fuck, did I just say “Hi, I’m Clint” to the world’s greatest assassin? What the ever loving fuck is wrong with me?_

She said nothing, just kept on staring at him with dead eyes.

“So… I’d offer you some noodles, but I’m pretty sure you’d just get sick and throw up all over the floor, which would be gross. And, I’m gonna be very honest here with you, I’m also scared that if I get any closer you’re gonna bite my ear off and use it as a weapon”.

Still, she said nothing, but he could see the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“So, yeah. To summon up, I’m Clint. I work for SHIELD and they sent me here to kill you. So… Yeah, nice to meet you”.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry?”

She cocked her head slightly to the side, assessing him. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Oh, right. Yeah, no, I made a different call. I thought we could, you know, chat a bit, talk about the weather, our favorite TV shows, that sort of thing. You watch Friends?”

“You want information, then. You’re wasting your time”.

“No, no”, he replied, stuffing his mouth with more noodle, which made a bit hard to properly talk, “I mean, I’m not a complete sucker, you feel like giving me some information, I’m not gonna say no. But no, that’s not the reason you’re still alive. I mean, I read your file. SHIELD knows there is nothing we could do to you to make you talk, so yeah, that would’ve been a complete waste of time”.

“You talk too much”. Her voice was still a bit sluggish, but Clint could still hear the heavy Russian accent.

  “So I’ve been told. So… Uh, are you by any chance looking for a new job? ‘Cause we could definitely use you at SHIELD. Plus we’ve got medical, dental, and the pay isn’t bad either”.

“You... Are you trying to hire me?”

“Yeah. Wasn’t it obvious?”

She raised an eyebrow, looking a bit confused. “I’d say this is the most bizarre job interview I’ve ever had, but then I’d be lying”.

“Good, Honesty is good. Honesty is the main foundation of any relationship. So, you’re interested?”

“If I say yes, will you let me go?” When Clint hesitated to answer, she smiled, “That’s what I thought”.

“Hey, come on, we just met. We need time to bond, to trust each other”.

“My employers trust me. You and your SHIELD could never. I’d be watched all the time, every step, every move. It doesn’t sound like a very fun work environment”.

“Do they? Your employers”, he clarified when she cocked her head in question, “Do they trust you? Or do they think you’re a pretty robot who can’t think for herself and just does as she’s told without ever questioning orders?”

She smiled. “So you think I’m pretty”.

“I’ve met someone else from the Red Room. Her name was Dorothy Underwood. SHIELD has some footage of her questioning. I noticed a few things, you know. Like the fact that she didn’t develop a personality, probably because the Red Room keeps their assets a blank slate to make it easier to control them and to mold them into whatever character they need to become to achieve their goals. Three people interrogated her. She mimicked them, like a mirror, the way they talked, the way they moved. Then, another person would come in, and she would change completely. You’re not like that, though. I can see it. Which means that you’re not a mindless puppet. Am I wrong?”

The Black Widow did not move. She did not take her eyes from him. Her face was as blank as it was when she first woke up. She said nothing.

“I don’t think I’m wrong. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that maybe you’ve thought about leaving. You’ve thought about what it would be like to make your own decisions, to be your own person. To be more than just the Black Widow, to be… What’s your name again?”

“Natalia”, she replied in a whisper, “Natalia Romanova”.

Clint wasn’t expecting that. Maybe she was lying, just saying whatever name popped in her head, but… She looked sincere. She was looking down, pensive. Like she herself couldn’t believe she had just said that. If it was true, if that was really her real name, then maybe this would work. Maybe Clint was getting somewhere with all his crazy talk.

“Is that your real name? Or is that the name they gave you?”

“My real one. My parents gave me this name”.

“What happened to them?”

“Too poor. Hungry. Cold. They were offered money. They needed money. They could always make another child”.

The words. They sounded rehearsed, like the woman had been made to repeat them again and again and again until she knew them but heart. Until they became her truth.

“Is that what they told you?” Clint asked. She did not look at him, nor did she answer. “Where are your parents now?”

“I don’t know”.

“Wouldn’t you like to know them? Wouldn’t you like to know if that’s the truth?”

“What does it matter?” She answered, looking up at him. Her eyes hid some much pain Clint could almost feel it. “The past cannot be changed. The truth will change nothing”.

“You’re right. You can’t change your past. But you can change your future.”

“What future is there for me? You say you read my file. You know what I have done. What future is there for someone like me?”

“If I can have a future, so can you”.

This time, she laughed a humorless laugh. “I have stolen, and killed, and tortured in the name of my country”.

“I know. I’ve done that for SHIELD too. And…” He stopped, looking down at his now cold noodles with a sad smile. “I’ve done that before SHIELD too”.

The Black Widow was silent. Then, “Tell me your story”, she whispered.

Clint looked at her, surprised. “Okay. My father was an abusive drunk. He would hit us and shout at us. My mother took the heat when she could. They died when my brother and I were young. Car accident. He was drunk.”

Natalia nodded. “And then?”

“Foster homes. Hundreds of them. Well, not really, I’m clearly exaggerating, but yeah, a lot. Last one was the Millers. Nice couple, took Barney and me to the Circus one time. Three days later, Mr. Miller punched my brother so hard he had a concussion. We got the hell out of there after that. One abusive asshole had been enough to last a lifetime, thank you very much”.

“Where did you go?”

“The Circus. We hid on the back of one of their trucks. Trick-Shot, one of the carnies, found us. Gave us a lecture about hitching a ride without asking permission and told us he would call social services to take us home. We told him what had happened. He said ”fuck the system” and let us stay. Barney and I, we worked hard. I learned this…”, he said, patting the bow and arrow beside him on the ground, “… And I was good. Well, you saw it”.

“I did. It was quite impressive. For a man in a purple unitart”, she replied, with mirth.

“Yeah, well, I was the best. And I liked it there. But Barney wanted to leave. He wanted to join the army, so he got out. And I stayed. And I trusted the wrong people. His name was Jacques, the Swordsman. I caught him stealing money from the Circus. He beat me up to a bloody pulp, worse than even Harold ― my asshole of a father”, he explained when the red head shot him a confused look, “worse than he had ever done. He would’ve killed me if Trick-Shot hadn’t found us. He drove the asshole away and helped me get better. Then he told me about this business of his, easy money, easy job. We stole from some people, killed some other on the way. I figured, he saved me, you know. Least I can do is help him out. So I did. Then, one day he told me he had a big job, a game changer”.

“What was the mission?”

“Steal from Marko, the guy who loaned money to Jacques.”

_He has a lot of security, so we need a sniper. You kill all the guards with that bow and arrow of yours while I get inside and take the money._

“What happened?”, Natalia asked in a whisper.

Clint huffed, shaking his head. “Turns out, my brother had done real great in the army. He became a CIA agent. His first job was to cover Marko’s ass. Protect him at all costs. I didn’t know it was him. Put an arrow through his heart”. _Clint? Is that you?_ “He recognized me. He was coughing blood, could barely talk. Trick-Shot knew the whole time. He didn’t tell me”. _No, no, please, Barney, no!_ “He died in my arms. I got pissed. Tried to kill Trick-Shot, but he was better than me. He took one of my own arrows, impaled me to a tree with it and left. Told me he would come back to kill me properly some day. SHIELD showed up”.

“And offered you a job?”

“Hell no!”, he laughed, “Arrested me. I told them all I knew, didn’t care either way. Than Co… This agent showed up. He tried to convince me that I was worth a damn, that I could do some good. It took him months to actually get through my thick skull, but hey, I had just killed my brother and been betrayed, again, by someone I considered family. It was hard to trust anybody else at that moment, especially a guy in a fancy suit”.

“How did he convince you?”

“He offered me something I desperately wanted but didn’t think I could have”.

“What was that?”

“A good life”.

Natalia was silent. She looked away from Clint, a thoughtful expression on her face. Clint waited.

“I will do it. I will be loyal to your SHIELD. I will do everything they tell me to do. But there is one condition”.

“Name it. I’ll see what I can do”.

“There is a girl. In the Red Room. I trained her. I want her”.

“To be an agent?”

“To be a person”, Natalia replied immediately, looking at Clint with determination, “she never submitted to the handlers, not the way others have. She follows the rules, she pretends to be compliant, but I know her. She will slip, make a mistake soon, and she’ll be killed for her actions. I can’t let that happen”.

“Ok. That sounds reasonable. I’ll talk to SHIELD, we’ll track her down. We won’t stop until we find her”.

“Then I’m yours”.

And in that moment, looking into Natalia’s eyes, he finally realized. As it turned out, they did have something in common. They both had someone they wanted to protect, someone they failed, someone they desperately needed to have safe and sound even if it cost them everything. In Clint’s case, it was already too late. Barney was dead, he was never coming back. But Natalia still had a chance. Natalia could still safe her Barney.

“What’s the girl’s name?”

“Anastasia”, she replied with longing in her voice, “her name is Anastasia”.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Years passed. The Avengers begin their journey together and someone makes a discovery that could change everything.

_7 years later._

“This is actually pretty good”.

“What’s yours?”

“Chicken”.

“Hum. Let me try”.

Clint offered Natasha his shawarma, letting her take a big bite out of it. “Yours is better. I want a chicken one”.

“Yeah, sure, go crazy, the billionaire is paying”, Tony complained half-heartedly. He still looked pretty shaken, more so than everyone else. Natasha guessed taking a nuclear bomb into space with no intention of coming back would do that to someone. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that Tony Stark was a civilian. He hadn’t been trained for the worse like Nat or Clint had. Hell, even Thor and Steve. Being a warrior prince from another world had probably prepared him for a battle like the one they had just had. And Steve, well, he was a soldier. And this, this had been just another war. A different war, sure, but a war nonetheless.

Tony, though, wasn’t a soldier, like he himself had said so many times. He wasn’t a trained agent or a warrior god from another realm. He was just a man who witnessed firsthand how fucked up the world really was and decided to change that. Much like Natasha, he had made bad choices in his life and, when given the opportunity, decided to change, to help. She could respect that. Choosing to do good... Well, let’s just say being a heartless assassin was much easier.

Natasha was brought back from her thoughts by the engineers voice.

“Then don’t go back to SHIELD right now. Call Captain One Eye and tell him you’re sleeping over today”.

“Captain One Eye?” Steve asked, amused.

“Well, I can’t call him Captain Hook. He doesn’t have a hook”, Tony explained, exasperated.

“That you know of”, Clint whispered, taking a sip from his Coke.

“I’m just saying, Loki is in custody and New York is, well, in pieces. They could use us here. You know, to clean up”, the engineer said, looking down at his empty plate.

Suddenly, Natasha understood.

“Starks right”, she said, looking around the table, “people died today and a big part of New York is destroyed. The first responders might need help and it would be good PR for SHIELD and for Stark Industries to show that we care”.

“Hold on, none of that was our fault! We were trying to _save_ those people, Loki was the one hurting them”.

“Loki and the chitauri”, added Thor, somberly.

“Clint, think about it. Loki is going back to Asgard, to face justice there. People are busy now thanking their Gods for surviving this, but soon enough that’ll pass. They’ll bury their dead and look at what once was their place of work, their stores and restaurants, and they will be sad. They’ll be angry. They will want someone to blame. The government will want someone to blame too. Loki won’t be here, but we will. We will become their escape goat”.

“Then we must act”, Thor said after a moment of silence, “we will tell these people Loki is to blame and he is receiving a most harsh punishment for his crimes. And we will tell them about their government and how, if not for our friend Man of Iron here”, at this, he slapped his hand on Tony’s back, making the brunette go slightly forward, “this city would be decimated”.

“We can’t tell them that”, Tony replied, sitting back at his chair, “if we tell the people the government wanted to nuke the city we’re going to have a way bigger problem in our hands, thunder thighs”.

“Right. So we need to make this right ourselves. We’ll sleep at the tower tonight and offer our help to the first responders tomorrow”, Natasha said, in a tone that didn’t leave much room for disagreement.

Interestingly enough, Steve remained silent, merely nodding after Natasha as he finished his own shawarma.

* * *

It was four in the morning and Natasha couldn’t sleep. The bed was very comfortable; in fact, it was the most comfortable thing she had ever slept on. The pillows were soft and smelled faintly of lavender, the temperature of the room was absolutely perfect and there was absolutely no noise to keep her up. Still, sleep evaded her.

She stayed on her bed for some time, just staring at the ceiling, thinking about her mission from two years ago. When Fury asked her to infiltrate Stark Industries and collect information on Stark she had been a bit… apprehensive. Fury knew why, of course. It was difficult to look at Stark and not remember Anastasia. A soft laugh escaped her. Anastasia, the lost princess indeed. Apparently, the Red Room had a sense of humor. A dark one, sure, but a sense of humor nonetheless.

Natasha closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. Remembering Anastasia meant remembering Budapest. She did not want to remember Budapest. Ever. Even the mention of it made her sick to her stomach. It had been for a good cause. She’d needed to know if Clint was really all back or still stuck in his head with Loki’s paw all over his brain. But still. Speaking of it in such a light manner had really messed her up.

She sat on her bed, looking around the room. There was no way she would be able to fall back to sleep.

“JARVIS?”, she called in a soft tone.

_Yes, agent Romanoff?_ , he responded promptly.

“Is anyone awake?”

He hesitated for a second before answering. _Sir is at the communal lounge area. I’m sure he would appreciate the company, even if he says otherwise._

Natasha smiled and got out of bed, putting on a robe she had found earlier in the bathroom and taking the elevator straight up to what Tony was calling the communal floor.

She could see him lying down on the couch as soon as she stepped out of the elevator.

“Come to join the insomniac club?” he called out still looking at the TV in front of him.

“Something like that, yeah”, she replied, walking over to him and throwing herself on the same couch he was.

“I can’t sleep”.

“Me neither”.

They looked at each other and in that moment Natasha could see the gratitude clear in his eyes. _Thanks for agreeing with me even though you knew the whole ‘they might need us’ excuse was bullshit_ , he seemed to say, _thanks for understanding that I just couldn’t be alone tonight, but still not using that moment of weakness against me._

She smiled at him. _Thanks for giving me a chance even though I lie to you._

In that moment, she thought about telling him the truth. She could tell him everything. About how she had found a recording in the Red Room that proved that his daughter hadn’t died at birth. About how his daughter was raised in a place so cold and unforgiving it almost destroyed her very soul. About Obadiah Stane and how he had taken her away, sold her to Red Room, to be tortured and stripped of all personality, to become nothing more than just a puppet, ready to kill even her own father if given the order. She could tell him. But what good would that bring?

_Let him think she felt no pain. Let him think she died in his arms rather than the truth._

Natasha turned her eyes to the TV, images of Budapest invading her mind in full force. She saw herself desperately hugging the unrecognizable body of the girl she had fought so hard to protect all those years. She felt again all the pain, all the sorrow, all the uncontrollable sadness that had filled her that day as she cried over Anastasia’s body. How could she ever tell Tony that his daughter had lived a life of torture, only to burn alive years later because of Natasha’s mistake? She could never.

So she stayed quiet as they both watched some silly Disney movie. They didn’t take their eyes off the TV, not even when Thor and Clint showed up, the first sitting down on the couch next to them while the second was sprawled on the carpeted floor. They didn’t blink when Steve showed up, wrapped around a heavy blanket even though the temperature of the room was perfect, and they didn’t bat an eye when Bruce came, sitting down next to Natasha, whispering _I love this movie_ as he hugged his pillow.

Eventually, the Avengers all fell asleep, the soft humming of the TV on the background. Little did they know this, right here, would become a very special tradition in what would soon become the Avengers Tower.

* * *

Meanwhile, somewhere far away from New York, a girl who could be no more than nineteen finally cracked the encrypted files she had been working so hard on. She had spent years trying to find the file and then weeks to decrypt it, but finally her hard work had paid off.

There was so much. All the assassinations, all the strategically placed politicians and… SHIELD. Agents in the lowest levels, agents in the highest levels. So many. But why, why would the Red Room do this? World domination wasn’t really their goal, so why would they bother to infiltrate all these governments, all these agencies? It made no sense.

Suddenly, her eyes flickered to the one folder she was looking for.

_The Lost Princess Protocol_

Natalia always joked with her. _You need to train harder, little lost princess_ , she would say with mirth in her eyes. The girl took a deep breath before clicking on it.

And then she couldn’t breathe. The documents, the birth certificate. Mother, deceased. Father, alive until he grew out of his usefulness. The plan: should Obadiah Stane not cooperate, he would be eliminated, and Anastasia ― no, not Anastasia, Abigail ―, the long lost daughter of Tony Stark, would return and take his place as head of Stark Industries. A weapons manufacturer. Why would the Red Room need that? They worked in secrecy and no weapon was greater than a little spider. They had always told her that. She couldn’t understand.

And then there was an audio file. She listened to it. Two men talking. Stane and Pierce. Pierce, the man whose name she had seen before. A councilman in something called the World Security Council. And then, she heard the words. She had heard those words before, whispered in fear amongst the older spiders. She felt a chill run down her body as they echoed in the room.

_Hail Hydra._


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people get revenge and plans are made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a few things about Captain America: Winter Soldier and added a few other things.  
> I hope it's good! Remember to leave a comment after you're finished!

Anastasia didn’t remember much about her days with Dr. Kudrin. She had been too young, after all, and whatever memories she had of that time were hazy and faded. But she remembered the needles. And she remembered the pain. The sort of pain that started soft like the touch of small flame and grew like a wild fire until every part of her skin was burning. It would go on for days on end. She would lay there, screaming and crying and thrashing while they poked her and took notes.

She knew that whatever they had done to her was supposed to make her faster, stronger, deadlier. And it did. She had never really noticed before all the little things that made her different from everyone else. She had way more stamina then the other little spiders, and could outrun all of them. She was quicker in battle as well, more focused than the others. And she could heal faster than the others. Bullets wounds took less than two days to heal. Stab wounds took mere hours to disappear completely, leaving no scars behind, no proof that anything had happen at all. Or at least, that’s what the files she had stolen said.

There were so many files. About who she was, who she had become. Detailed descriptions of her training sessions, containing her weaknesses and strengths. _Too emotional, too headstrong, too impulsive_. They talked about her relationship with Natalia: _too attached to each other, might become an issue in the future_. Her missions, the targets she assassinated, every piece of her life compressed in a bunch of files hidden away. Well, not hidden away anymore.

Anastasia had spent the last two years meticulously studying every single one of them. It hadn’t been easy. She was watched almost constantly, so she’d had to do it in the middle of the night, away from prying eyes. And as she studied, she planned. She planned what she would do to the people who had taken her from her family, the people who had tortured her for so many years. She dreamed every night about the day she would finally make them pay for everything they’d done, not only to her, but to Natalia as well. And the day had finally come.

The full moon shone bright in the dark sky that night as Anastasia walked towards the burning building, or what remained of it at least. She could see the many bodies fallen on the ground, the smell of burnt flesh filling her nose, but she paid them no attention. She kept on walking, her eyes glued to the old woman covered in blood, trying desperately to lift the huge block of cement from her legs. Anastasia stood beside her, looking down on her with a smirk.

“YOU! YOU LITTLE MONSTER, YOU’LL PAY FOR THIS”, the woman screamed, coughing between every other word, her voice hoarse and weak.

Anastasia put one of foot on the block of cement, pressing it down slightly, and the woman screamed in pain.

“Look around you, Eva. There’s no more Red Room. Your handlers are dead. Your building is in pieces. All your work burned to the ground”.

“You’ll regret this, Anastasia”.

“My only regret is that Dr. Kudrin died before I could kill her myself”, Anastasia replied, pointing the gun she carried to Eva’s face, “I hoped that you’d burn alive, but I’ll settle for putting a bullet in your head. It’s more mercy than you deserve. And my name is not Anastasia. My name is Abigail Stark”.

And, before Eva could open her mouth to retort, she shot the woman between the eyes without as much as a flinch. With one last look around the place she had grown up in, Abigail turned and walked away, leaving behind all the pain and suffering, and finally, _finally_ , going home.

* * *

**Washington, DC.**

_18 hours to Launch Sequence Initiation._

Nicholas Fury was fifty seven years old and he had witnessed a lot of crazy ass shit in his life, both during his time as a SHIELD agent and as director of said organization. And everything he had lived through had taught him two valuable lessons, the first being: trust no one. Some people thought that was a tough way to live. Nick preferred to think of it as a smart way to survive. He had friends, of course, people he trusted to a certain degree, who he could count on, in whom he could confide some of his, and SHIELD’s, secrets. There weren’t many, it’s true, but he had always favored quality over quantity.

The second lesson life had taught Nick was to always trust his gut. Sometimes, he would get this feeling in the pit of his stomach, like a tiny snake rattling around. It was like an alarm of sorts that screamed _danger danger danger_ everytime something was amiss. It had gone off when he found the tesseract. It had gone off that morning, when he had tried, and failed, to decrypt the files from the flash drive Natasha had recovered from the ship. And it went off when he walked into his kitchen that night, right after opening the fridge.

He turned quickly, gun already in hand, pointed straight at the brunette who was quietly sitting at his table, watching him.

“Hi”, she said, unmoving.

“You can start with your name and why the hell you’re in my motherfucking kitchen, kid”.

“I’m Abigail Stark”.

That made Nick hesitate, the gun in his hand faltering. He quickly put himself together, tightening his hold on it, staring at the girl with suspicion.

“You look very alive for someone who died at birth”, he replied.

“I’m tough to kill. And from what I hear, I get that from my dad”.

“And am I supposed to just take your word for it?”

“Well, I don’t really know how I could prove it to you. I’d say let’s do a DNA test, but that’s not exactly a viable option at the moment, right?”

Nick continued to stare at her. She looked young, around twenty years old. Brunette, brown eyes. Her appearance did match the description Natasha had given him all those years ago, but then again, “brunette with brown eyes” wasn’t exactly a rare look. She did remind Nick of Stark, though. The defiance in her eyes, the sarcastic tone.

And that’s when he remembered. Something Natasha had told him, something only the real girl would know.

“When was the first time you ate chocolate?”

With a small smile, the girl promptly answered, “It was Christmas. Nat returned from a mission and she managed to steal a piece of chocolate. It was half eaten, but it was good. I was twelve”.

Slowly, Nick lowered the gun, still keeping his eyes on the girl. “Ok. Let’s jump to ‘why the hell you’re in my kitchen’, kid”.

“Because of this”, she said, sliding a black flash drive across the table.

“And what the hell is that?”

“Proof that Hydra infiltrated SHIELD and they’re planning on killing a lot of people real soon”.

Nick had known in his gut something was very wrong. He just really wasn’t expecting something like that.

“I’m hungry. Do you have anything to eat?”

 

He made her Mac and Cheese while she used his computer. It was from a box and it tasted like cardboard, but Nick guessed that for someone who had probably spent her entire life eating less than edible food, this was a banquet worth of a king. He added some bacon to it. _Might as well put some flavor in this shit_.

“So, you hacked their computer?”

“If by hacked you mean created a program from scratch that imitated the system to fool their A.I. long enough for me to get in and make a copy of all the files they had encrypted there, then, yeah, sure, I hacked their computer”, she replied, taking a huge bite of mac and cheese, “what’s this?”

“Macaroni and Cheese”.

She nodded, swallowing before taking another forkful of the dish, “I like this”.

“Hold on, you said they had an A.I.?”

“Not had, have. And I’m not one hundred percent sure it’s an actual A.I. What I know is it’s a program that kept rewriting itself every time I tried to break it down. But it was advanced, more advanced than anything I had ever worked with, or against. Also, I don’t know where the source of this program is, but it ran a pretty large portion of the missions in the Red Room”.

Nick sipped from his glass of whiskey, stealing a bacon from the girl’s plate before sitting down beside her.

“You have the names there?”

“There’s a list, yeah. Politicians, FBI agents, CIA agents, SHIELD agents, they’re everywhere”.

“Is there an Alexander Pierce on the list?”

Abigail stopped typing for a second and threw a look at Fury before finding the file and pressing play. She ate her Mac and Cheese as he listened.

 

> _“Good. And the girl? She better not come back, Pierce. I have enough trouble with one Stark, I don’t need another”._
> 
> _(…)_
> 
> _“No, no. We need him. For now. But you’ll be the first to know when he outlives his usefulness”._
> 
> _“Very well, then. Hail Hydra”._

 

“Motherfucker”.

“Yeah”, the girl replied.

“You said they have a plan. What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know”, she confessed with a grimace, “all I know is that they’re calling it Project Insight”.

“SHIT”, Nick shouted, getting up so fast the chair he was sitting on fell to the floor, “MOTHERFUCKERS”.

“I take it you know what Project Insight means?”

“It means we screwed up, kid. I screwed up”.

“How do we unscrew it?”

“Pierce doesn’t know I know. I’m going to try to delay Project Insight”.

Abigail shook her head. “That’s a bad plan. He might suspect something is going on. Especially after the boat thing”.

“And if he does, we’ll have a plan for that as well”.

* * *

_16 hours to Launch Sequence Initiation._

 

Needless to say, Abigail hated Fury’s plan. It was sloppy, relied too much on sheer dumb luck and had a very high chance of going really wrong really fast. But still, he insisted on it, so Abigail agreed, even if against her will.

Fury had given her a special earpiece, so they could talk through the whole thing and keep each other informed. There wasn’t much she could do to help at the moment, so she stayed away, hacking the cameras at the Triskelion, watching the man’s every move as he entered the snake’s nest.

The exchange between Fury and Pierce had been rather boring and anticlimactic. The real action began a few moments later, when four police cars slammed into his SUV.

“I told you this was a bad plan”, she said, re-booting the SUV’s system from a distance.

“Just get out of here”, he complained, using the machine gun embedded on the car.

As soon as the system was back, Fury stepped on the accelerator, trying very hard to put some distance between himself and his attackers.

And then he came. Abigail saw him through the traffic cameras and almost shouted. _The Winter Soldier_. The car flipped over, sliding right past the man in black, who’s only action was to take a step to the side, never taking his eyes off his target.

“Fury, you need to get the hell out of there! RIGHT NOW!”

“I got it”, he replied with a grunt of pain. Abigail heard a weird noise she couldn’t quite identify and then the sound of heavy boots hitting the water as someone ran.

“I’m in the sewers. Headed to Rogers now”.

“You don’t get it. You’re a dead man walking, Fury. The Winter Soldier doesn’t stop until his target is dead”.

A few seconds of silence before Fury replied, “Then I guess I’m gonna have to die today. Call Hill, tell her to bring the drug. She’ll know what it means”.

* * *

_10 hours to Launch Sequence Initiation._

 

“Well, as far as stupid ass plans go, this one certainly takes the fucking cake”.

“It worked, didn’t it?”

Abigail turned to look at Fury, shaking her head. “You’re unbelievable”.

To be fair, yes, the plan had worked. Everyone now thought Fury was dead and people don’t hunt dead men. This gave them at least a bit of freedom to work the issue in relative peace. But, as Abigail insisted on reminding the director, at a very high price.

“He’s going to send the Soldier after them. He sent him after you in broad daylight. They don’t care about being exposed anymore, they just care about getting the job done”.

“That makes them sloppy”, Fury replied from his bed, grunting in pain as he tried to sit up.

“That makes them dangerous”, Abigail countered, walking anxiously from one side of the room to the other, “You need to call him in”.

“You think Rogers hasn’t done that already? Stark is probably flying his ass to the country right now. Thor and Banner are probably already on route as well”.

“You need to bring them here. So we can come up with a better plan of attack”, she insisted, but Fury cut her off.

“So you can meet Stark, you mean”. Abigail didn’t answer, just crossed her arms and looked away. “You’ll get the chance, kid”.

“Director”, came the voice from the door. Hill was standing there, looking perfectly put together as usual, a cell phone on her hands, “We just received a message from Romanoff. They ran into some trouble, but they’re fine. They’re going after Jasper Sitwell”.

“They?”, Abigail inquired, looking hopeful.

“The Avengers”.

“Send them our location. Tell Romanoff to send Thor and Banner over here. If they manage to hack our devices and get our coordinates, we’re going to need the big guns here”.

“Yes, sir”, Hill replied, already typing on her phone.

“Take a small team, shadow them. Be ready for extraction, if needed”.

“I’m going with you”, Abigail immediately said, walking towards Hill, “Don’t. I’m going”, she added as soon as Fury opened his mouth to disagree.

With a sigh, he nodded at Hill, and they both walked out of the room.

It was time to lend a helping hand to Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winter Soldier joins the game and Hydra must be stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> зайка - little bunny  
> не сейчас - not now
> 
> (I used Google Translate and a strange website for the bunny thing so this may be well off)

In the end, a _small team_ meant Maria and Abigail were on their own. They took one of the few cars they had and left in a hurry. Abigail insisted she should drive, claiming she probably had had a much better training for it then Hill. The agent just looked at her with a bored expression and got into the driver’s seat, without so much as uttering a word to the younger woman.

“Here”, Maria said, giving her a small device, “You can see Natasha’s location in there. Just tell me when to turn”.

“Yeah, okay”, she replied, a bit distracted.

“Hey!” Abigail turned to Maria, who turned her head slightly to the side while still keeping her eyes on the road, “Focus on the mission”.

“Turn left on the next exit”, the girl said without paying Maria much attention. She could never understand everything Abigail had gone through, everything she had done to get here. This was it. She was going to see Natalia again. God, she was going to meet her father for the first time. How the hell could she possibly focus on anything else?

They didn’t talk during the ride, the silence only broken by Abigail’s occasional instruction to turn left or right. Finally, the young woman spotted the car where Natalia and the others were. Unfortunately, she also spotted something else.

“Shit”.

“Black car going for them? I see it”.

“Not the car. The soldier”, she whispered, watching as the Winter Soldier got out of the moving car and up on its roof before leaping forward and landing on Natalia’s car. The soldier grabbed someone by the back window ( _please, don’t let it be Natalia, please, don’t let it be my father_ ) and, a second later, threw him right into traffic. From where they were, Maria and Abigail could see the body explode as it hit the truck.

“Who the hell was that?

“It looked like Sitwell”.

“The snitch?”

“Yes”, Maria confirmed.

“Yeah, Hydra really hates those”, the young woman replied, “You need to get closer, we need to help them”.

“No”.

“NO? WHAT DO YOU MEAN NO?” Abigail screamed, turning to look at the agent.

“They can handle it. If we go help them now, there will be no extraction team. We need to keep our distance and wait for the right moment”.

Abigail let herself fall back into the seat. She understood the logic behind Maria’s decision, but she definitely didn’t agree to it.

“It’s the Winter Soldier. They’ll need help”.

“It’s the Avengers. They can do this”, Maria replied firmly, throwing a quick look at Abigail.

And so they stood back and watched the fight as it progressed.

“Damn, he’s good”, Maria said, watching the Winter Soldier closely.

“I don’t see Iron Man”.

“Stark must be doing something else”, the agent turned to look at the young woman, “Hey, kid. Relax. You’ll get your chance soon enough”.

Suddenly, they saw some SUV’s getting close. They looked awfully familiar.

“They’re SHIELD”, Maria noticed. She quickly took the device from Abigail’s hands and showed her a point in the small map, “Wait for me here. And be ready to drive”. And, with that, she left the car and ran.

Abigail did as she was told, even though all she wanted to do was to ditch the car and go help the others. She waited impatiently for Maria and the others, all the while watching the perimeter carefully in case some SHIELD ― well Hydra, really ― agents decided to show up. After a few minutes, she noticed some movement and that’s when she saw Hill running towards the car with a man she had never seen before, Captain America right behind her holding Natalia in his arms. Abigail started the car and sped up as soon as everybody got inside the car. She looked at Natalia through the rear-view mirror. Their eyes met for a brief moment and Abigail saw a spark of recognition in them.

“зайка?” Natalia asked, her voice laced with a pain that had nothing to do with her bullet wound.

“не сейчас”, she replied and turned her attention back to the road.

Maria took a look at her and then turned back to look at Natalia. “Soon, Nat”.

“Soon”, Natalia agreed, throwing her head back and closing her eyes.

* * *

Bruce Banner was waiting for them when they got there. Apparently, Maria had radioed ahead to let them know Natalia was hurt. The man, Sam, carried her inside while Banner followed them closely, asking the woman about how much pain she was in and if the bullet had exited the wound. Captain America was weirdly silent throughout the whole thing. He walked ahead of Abigail, obviously looking for someone, stopping abruptly when he found them.

Tony Stark was standing in the middle of the corridor, looking worried about the Captain obvious distress.

“Hey, what happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost”.

Stark hadn’t even finished his sentence before the Captain ran to him, engulfing him in a hug. Abigail stood there, watching, unsure what to do. She had seen pictures of her father, of course. Interviews, YouTube videos filmed by civilians, even SHIELD footage. But here, in person, he looked… different. He looked real. She felt her heart beat louder and faster, her hands sweating and twitching as she stared at him.

“Who’s that one? What did I tell you about bringing more strays home, big guy?” the genius joked in a light tone.

The Captain mumbled something Abigail couldn’t quite understand. Stark, on the other hand, heard it just fine and continued to look at the young woman, expecting an answer.

“I’m… an agent. Excuse me”, and, without giving her father any time to reply, Abigail turned and went straight for the medical area, where Natalia was probably being treated.

 

“So, you didn’t tell him?”

Abigail didn’t respond, didn’t even turn to look at Natalia, just kept staring at the open door with her arms crossed. She was angry. Angry at herself for not having the balls to tell her father who she was, angry at Natalia for leaving her with those people, for not keeping her promise.

“I found out. That’s why they sent me away. And I knew that if I told you the truth, they would do to you what they did to him”.

This time, Abigail turned to look at her.

“The Soldier”, Natalia clarified, “They would wipe you like they did him. I honestly don’t know why they didn’t do it to me when I found out”.

“He’s all brawl. Spiders need their brains. They must’ve thought you were too valuable”, the young woman replied, “You promised. You promised you’d come back for me”.

“I did, зайка. I… I thought it was you. I should have known they would try to trick me. I was stupid”.

“What happened?”

“I told Director Fury that my loyalty had a price and that price was having you here, safe from them. I heard from a source that you had a mission in Budapest so that’s where we went”.

“We?”

Natalia smiled. “Clint and I. He must be around here, he came with Stark. You’ll like him”, she paused for what seemed a very long time, “There was a girl. She looked exactly like you. Long story short, there were some explosions. She burned to death, screaming. I thought that was you. I mourned you”, at this point, Natalia was crying, “You have no idea how happy I am to see you here”.

“How did you know it was me? Back in the car?”

“You haven’t changed that much, зайка”, she replied amidst tears and a smile.

With tears in her eyes, Abigail threw herself at Natalia, hugging her tightly.

“I’m sorry, Anastasia”.

“It’s Abigail, actually”, the little spider corrected her, smiling, “And I forgive you, Natalia”.

“Well, since you started it… It’s Natasha now”.

“Am I interrupting something?”

They both turned to look at the door, where Tony Stark stood looking confused.

“Cap has a plan. We’ve gotta move”.

The women looked at each other and Abigail nodded, both getting up.

“We’re ready”, Natasha announced, wincing slightly when she moved her arm.

“Good. Because let me tell you, you’re really gonna love his plan”, Tony replied in a sarcastic tone.

And as it turned out… It really was a very _very_ bad plan indeed.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got mixed up with some bad people and now I'm in prison. I need some comments so I can trade them for protection, so leave me some, please!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abigail tells Tony and they talk.

“You have got to be kidding me”.

As far as bad plans went, this one wasn’t bad. It was actually the worst plan in the entire history of bad plans. She looked at Natasha, as if asking for help, but the red head just shrugged. Abigail was starting to think that “coming up with horrible, poorly thought plans” was a requirement to join SHIELD.

“It’ll work”.

“No, it won’t. In fact, what you have is not even a plan”.

“It’s barely a pla”, Clint replied, snickering. When everyone turned their eyes at him, he shrugged, “Phoebe Buffay? Friends?”, and when there was no answer, he snorted, “Bunch of uncultured swines”.

“ANYWAY”, Tony interrupted, “I agree with the kid, it’s a bad plan, but we’ve got nothing better so…”

“So we’re doing the suicide pla?” Abigail asked. Clint gave her finger guns, winking.

Tony nodded sharply, pursing his lips, “We’re doing the suicide pla”.

* * *

They did the suicide pla. They saved the day, and with it a few million people around the world. The difficult, suicidal mission hadn’t been anything new. Abigail had spent most of her life going to almost impossible missions, after all. However, none of those missions had ever been about saving people. She’d killed politicians and scientists and even kings, but she’d never saved someone, let alone millions of people. It felt oddly exhilarating, knowing that for the first time since, well, forever, she had actually used her skills for something good. Skills acquired in the Red Room. It was mind-blowing and, to be very honest, she had never felt so proud of herself.

“Tony is with Steve at the hospital”, Natasha said after knocking on the open door.

“Is he okay?”

“He’ll be fine. He heals fast”, Nat replied, sitting beside the younger woman on the medical bed, “How’s your arm?”

“Fine. I don’t know if you remember, but I happen to heal fast too”, Abigail said with a smile.

“So… Fury knows”.

“Yep”.

“And Tony doesn’t”.

“Yep”.

“When are you going to tell him?”

Abigail huffed, biting her lip. “I don’t know. Maybe when they come back from the hospital. But that’s not important. How’s the Soldier?”

“He’s still out cold. I can’t believe you took down the Winter Soldier”, Natasha said, shaking her head in disbelief, “How did you do it?”

The young woman opened her mouth, but seemed to think better and just closed it again. Then, she smiled playfully. “I guess I’m just better trained”.

“I’m the one who trained you”.

“Yep. The student has become the master”, she replied with a curt bow.

Natasha pulled her closer, with a hushed laugh, messing up Abigail’s hair. “That’s my girl. I’m so proud of you”, and she hugged the younger woman tightly, “And I missed you”.

“I missed you too”.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure”.

“Did she suffer?”, Natasha asked in a serious tone.

“…Yes.”

“Good”, the red head replied. They stayed there for a long while, enjoying the brief moment of peace.

* * *

Natasha invited Abigail back to the tower, in New York. Apparently, that’s where all the Avengers had been living together since the alien attack. At first, Abigail refused, afraid that her father might not like that very much, but Natasha and the others assured her he would be more than happy to have her there, so off they went. Steve was still in the hospital, so he and Tony would be arriving a few days later, which gave Abigail plenty of time to acclimate herself with the tower.

On her very first day, she met JARVIS. Natasha had introduced them as soon as they walked through the door and she and the AI had hit it off right away. Abigail took advantage of the fact that JARVIS seemed to have a bit of a soft spot for her to ask questions about her father. _What is he like, what does he like, what doesn’t he like, what’s his favorite food_. The AI answered every question with gusto, and even let her enter the workshop to introduce her to the other robots, Dum-E, Butterfingers and U. At one point, Abigail asked JARVIS if Tony wouldn’t mind her there, in his space.

“Sir is aware you are here, miss, and he gave me permission to allow you into this space”.

“Oh. So, he knows?”

“Indeed he does, miss Anastasia”.

“Do you know when he’s coming back?”, she asked, feigning disinterest.

“Sir and the Captain will be here at approximately 6pm”.

“Oh. Good. I need to do something, but… Could you let me know when he arrives? And tell him that I need to talk to him?”

“Of course, miss”, the AI promptly replied.

With a final goodbye to the robots, Abigail left the workshop, going straight for the medical facility. She had some things she needed to take care of before her father arrived.

* * *

Tony and Steve arrived in the tower at 6:15pm. The Captain looked much better than the last time Abigail had seen him, which was good. She had fought the Winter Soldier before herself. It had been bad enough in training, where he couldn’t really kill her, so she could only imagine what Steve had gone through fighting him when there was nothing stopping him.

It was almost 7 when JARVIS said Tony was waiting for her on his workshop. She knew the exact time because she had been staring at the clock since Tony and Steve had arrived. She went down to the workshop, her faithful flash drive secure on her right hand. She was nervous and scared and she felt the strange urge to cry, which was weird because she never cried.

When the elevator doors opened, she stepped inside the workshop and smiled when Dum-E came rushing to greet her.

“Hey, kid. I heard you charmed my children”, Tony greeted her, cleaning his hands on a dirty rag.

“Yeah, they’re really nice”.

“So, what do you want to talk about?”

“Uh”, she started, looking around, “Can we sit, maybe?”

Looking a bit confused at that, the engineer nodded, gesturing to a couple of chairs nearby his workstation.

“Okay, kid. Talk away”, he said when they sat down.

“I’m… not a SHIELD agent, like I said before. I… I know Natasha from her time in the Red Room. Because I was raised there with her. They called me Anastasia. I didn’t really know why until a few years ago, when I found some files. Turns out my handlers actually had a sense of humor”, she explained, with a small smile, “do you know who Anastasia is?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the Disney movie”, Tony replied, and then promptly explained when Abigail looked at him, confused, “she is a princess, evil wizard attacks her family, she tries to escape with her grandmother, falls, hits her head, forgets everything, goes to on a adventure with a dashing guy and his sassy friend, falls in love, finds her grandmother, defeats evil wizard, and bang, happily ever after”.

Abigail was about to retort when JARVIS interrupted her, “I believe that is _not_ a Disney movie, sir”.

“Whatever. The point is, they called me Anastasia because she was the lost princess of an empire. And, as it happened, I was the lost princess of an empire as well, a technological empire. I was taken from my family when I was born and given to the Red Room. The plan was for them to raise me and train me, and then one day they would kill my father and I would come back, the long lost daughter, and take his place. And then HYDRA would have a lot of power”.

Tony stayed silent and merely nodded, urging her to continue.

“But I found out. It took me a long, long time, but I managed to break their system and decrypt all the files. And then, when I was ready, I… I burned down the Red Room and everyone in it and I came here, to warn Fury about HYDRA. And to find my father”.

She took a deep breath, looking down.

“The folder with my name on it had, among many things, a copy of my birth certificate, videos taken from a hospital’s security cameras and an audio conversation. The conversation was between a man named Pierce and another man name Stane, and the name on the birth certificate was Abigail Maria Stark”.

Tony suddenly stopped breathing. He felt like his lungs had suddenly shut down. He didn’t know what to say or what to do, so he just kept staring at her, mouth hanging, not really understanding what was going on. Abigail looked up at him and extended her arm, opening her palm to show a flash drive.

Tony took the flash drive from the girl’s hand, still petrified.

“All the files are there. And Dr. Cho took a sample of my blood. She’ll send you the results”, Abigail said, looking down for a second, “You should… Check all that. And then, if you want to talk or something, I’ll be around. So… yeah”.

With a final nod, she exited the workshop, leaving a very bewildered Tony behind.

* * *

He spent the entire night reading files and more files. He cried when he read about Abigail’s training in the Red Room. He threw a nearby wrench right at the wall after listening to Stane’s conversation, feeling more enraged then he’d ever felt in his entire life. By morning, Steve found Tony sitting on his desk, holding his head on his hands, looking completely lost. The blond pulled a chair and sat beside him.

“Nat told me. How are you?”

Tony looked up, huffing. “I always knew I’d be a shitty dad, you know? From the beginning, I knew I was going to screw up. But I figured I’d, I don’t know, spoil them rotten? Or maybe be an absent dad, like Howard”, he laughed humorlessly, “But no, I actually went way beyond that. I abandoned my daughter and, while I traveled and ate fucking sushi and went 11 for 12 on the 2007 Maxim cover models, my daughter was being tortured on the other side of the world”.

“11 for 12?”, Steve asked, arching an eyebrow.

“March and I had a scheduling conflict. But the Christmas cover was twins”.

“That’s… very disturbing”.

“Seriously? THAT’s what’s disturbing?” Tony turned to look at his partner, incredulous.

“Honey, listen to me. It wasn’t your fault”.

“I’m her father. I was supposed to protect her. Do you know who took her from me?”

“Stane”, Steve replied, taking his partner’s hand in his and holding it, “Nat told me. Look, I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now, sweetheart, but I’m going to repeat this until you get it… It wasn’t your fault. You trusted him. A lot of people trusted him. Come on, look how many HYDRA agents infiltrated SHIELD and no one noticed. Tony, you couldn’t have known”.

Tony looked away and then down, shaking his head. “I still failed her. She was tortured and brainwashed and they made her do things…”, at this, Steve squeezed his hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing it lightly, “She must hate me”.

“You’re kidding, right? Tony, she rebelled against her handlers, burned down the Red Room, traveled here all alone, fought a bunch of Nazis and the Winter Soldier… She did all those things just to meet you. Trust me, she doesn’t hate you”.

Tony stared at him for a moment, tears in his eyes, and then nodded, taking a deep breath.

“She’s upstairs, having breakfast with everyone. I’m going to go check on Bucky”, Steve said, getting up, “You just get up there when you’re ready, okay?”

Tony closed his eyes briefly as Steve kissed his cheek. He watched as his partner left the workshop and went back to trying to figure out what to do next.

“What do I do, JARVIS?”

A video suddenly showed up right in front of him. The date read September 18th 2004\. In it, Tony was sitting on the floor of the workshop, a bottle of scotch on his right. He was looking up, head resting on the desk behind him, looking as lost then as he felt right now.

_“I never got to hug her. Hell, I barely got to hold her”, video-him said, covering his eyes with his hand, “That’s all I wanted to do… Hug my little girl”._

The video cut as suddenly as it had started. Tony stared at it and then smiled. He got up and went straight for the elevator.

Bruce and Clint were making what appeared to be pancakes while Abigail, Nat and Thor were sitting around the kitchen aisle, talking. They turned when they heard the sound of the elevator opening. Tony walked towards them, hands on his pockets.

“Hey”, Abigail greeted him, standing up.

“Hey. Can we talk over here?”

“Sure”.

The others pretended to be busy, stealing glances at their teammate and his daughter as they walked to the joint living room.

“We can’t hear them”, Nat complained.

“We’re not supposed to. This is a private moment, let them be”, Bruce replied, putting some pancakes on Thor’s plate.

“Yeah, guys, come on, don’t be assholes”.

“You’re reading their lips, aren’t you?”

“Yep”, Clint said, taking a sip from his grape juice through a licorice straw.

On the living room, Abigail and Tony stood face to face, looking uncomfortable and lost.

“So, you saw the files”.

“I did, yeah”, the engineer replied, nodding emphatically.

“Right. So you know the things that…”.

“Yeah.

“…that I’ve done…”

“…that they did to you…”, Tony replied at the exact same time. He looked up, into his daughter’s eyes, confused, “Wait, no. The things you’ve done? That’s… That’s not your fault”.

“Nat keeps telling me that too. It may not be my fault, but I still did them”.

“That’s my fault. I… I should’ve protected you, I should’ve…”

“You couldn’t know…”

“I should have…”

“Okay”, Abigail interrupted in a forceful tone, “Just… You don’t hate me? Because of the whole… murdering… people… thing?”

Tony laughed quietly, shaking his head. He had tears in his eyes when he spoke next, “You know, when I found out that I was going to be a father I was scared shitless. I wasn’t exactly father material. I drank too much, I slept around… I had this ton of trauma hanging over my head that I pretended didn’t exist. I mean, it’s still there, but at least now I acknowledge it and actually talk about it with a proper health professional. Anyway, I wasn’t ready for all the responsibilities that came with a baby. But I wanted you. God, I wanted you more than I had ever wanted anything in my entire life”, by this point, he couldn’t hold the tears any longer.

He looked over to Abigail, who was silently crying, and took a deep breath before continuing. “I painted your nursery. Even bought some wood ballerinas to decorate it, you know. It didn’t look very good, I gotta tell you, but I think you might’ve liked it”.

“I know I would have”, she replied with a small smile.

“Yeah. I kept the room after, well, after you ‘died’, kinda like a shrine to you”, he winced, “that sounded a lot less creepy in my head. Anyway”, he said, shaking his head and looking at his daughter, “what I’m trying to say is… I loved you the moment I found out about you. And I loved you all these years. I will always love you. And I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re here…”

However, he didn’t finish his sentence, because Abigail threw herself at him, hugging the engineer as tightly as she could. At this point, neither tried to control their tears anymore and both started fully crying, holding one another as if their very lives depended on it.

“Can I call you dad?”, she asked in a whisper, burying her head on his chest.

Tony laughed, nodding and kissing her hair. “Yeah. Yeah, that would be amazing, actually. Guess I’m now legally allowed to make dad jokes”.

“Oh, man”, Clint complained loudly from the kitchen, receiving a hard slap right on the back of his head from Nat.

Tony and Abigail just laughed amidst tears and joined the rest of the Avengers in the kitchen for breakfast. There was a lot to talk about, but it was okay. After all, they had all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to end the story here because, honestly? I lost the energy to write it. I had some plans about the whole Stony relationship now that Bucky was back, some BuckyNat and, of course, a few sweet and angsty moments with Tony and Abby learning how to be father and daughter. I may write some of those as short stories later, but right now, that's it, that's the fic. Thanks for reading it, guys! And check my other stories, they're definitely much better lol :*


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